


Comets and Coal

by SpoonerizeSwiftness (SplickedyHat)



Series: EXCLUSIVE: scandal of the SWEEP!!  Pale porn stars IN LOVE??! [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Death Threats, Dubcon or Noncon Moirallegiance, Gen, M/M, Non-Sexual Bondage, Non-Sexual Kink, Pale Bondage, Pale Porn, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3611322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SplickedyHat/pseuds/SpoonerizeSwiftness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The empress sends you a pair of soft leather cuffs straight off your secret eFlay wishlist—but instead of just the dull rusty-red cuffs you’d grudgingly settled for these are perfect fiery candy-red, fit perfectly to your wrists and buckled in pure pitch-black.  They look like sin in a neat package.  When you open them you nearly pass out.  When Gamzee looks over your shoulder quizzically without a single sound of warning and goes “What you got there, best friend?” you shriek and almost head-butt him in the nose.</p><p>Life after stepping down as the galaxy's most beloved pale porn star, or, "Celebrities Aren't Your Quadrants And Nobody 'Stole' Me From Any Of You, Stop Sending Hate Mail You Fucking Douchewaffles".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comets and Coal

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jumpingjacktrash, mrbiggsproductions, alwaysmycandyart, sailershanty, and eridanuschildeater (all on tumblr) for volunteering their fantrolls to be background assholes. Your sacrifice is greatly appreciated. UwU

 

The empress sends you a pair of soft leather cuffs straight off your secret eFlay wishlist—but instead of just the dull rusty-red cuffs you’d grudgingly settled for these are perfect fiery candy-red, fit perfectly to your wrists and buckled in pure pitch-black.  They look like sin in a neat package.  When you open them you nearly pass out.

When Gamzee looks over your shoulder quizzically without a single sound of warning and goes “What you got there, best friend?” you shriek and almost head-butt him in the nose.

“Don’t fucking— _scare me_ like that!”

He’d poked and laughed and teased and you’d swatted him on the back of the head and blushed and yelled.  You’d been waiting for a special day to use them, sometime you could really get your money’s worth, something she’d really appreciate.

That was then.

This is now.

"Now" finds you cold and shaking, slamming your husktop shut.  "Now" has you backing away from it, dragging your hands through your hair, trembling, sick to your stomach, backing and then turning and running.

You find Gamzee in the entertainment block, leaned back on the pile playing something on a palmhusk—he turns up to look at you, smiling, and his eyes widen at the look on your face, the way your legs must be visibly shaking.  You hold out the cuffs like a plea.

"I need these."  The words come out in a rush before he can ask and he sits up and stares at you, brow furrowing, mouth opening to ask—you cut him off.  "—No, fuck, no, don’t ask, don’t ask until I’ve got them on just—please,  _now._ ”

He puts the cuffs on before he dials the empress for you, which is good because if you didn’t have the solid leather holding you where you are you think you would have gone mad when he left you.  Even as it is you’re rocking in place by the time he settles back down with you, breathing harder, trying to keep your thinkpan on the sensation of being held, trying to ignore the echoing dread.  Every inch of your body is a raw nerve ending.  You fret at the cuffs where they pull your arms behind your back and he puts out a hand and rests it over yours, looking up past you at something on the screen.  

“…Gamzee?” you say, and you’re ashamed of how your voice cracks.  He blinks and then leans down and kisses you gently, and it’s comforting and close and familiar, welcome after the pusher-pounding strangeness of the cuffs and the  _fear._   You lean into it desperately and he pecks twice at your lips, then your nose and then once on each eyelid, delicate as a flutterbug.  

 _“Just good things,_ ” he says, really soft, soft enough even the camera probably can’t pick it up.  “ _Only good things at you, best friend.  I wouldn’t do otherwise.  Trust in me._ ”

“I—” the word chokes a little—the camera is on you and you’re still  _terrified,_ tongue-tied and shaky like a new hire stuttering their way through a first shoot.  “—please—”

"What’s up," he murmurs, and you bow your head into his shoulder and let him pick you up with barely an effort, situate you in his lap with your head in the crook of his neck—a hand on your hair and horns, the other one framing you, resting on your side.  It’s comforting, feeling how easily he lifts you, one-armed and off-hand like you don’t weigh a thing.  He feels so delicate when you hold him, but he could fight, couldn’t he, he could defend himself—"—best friend, shooosh, what the motherfucking hell got you all so worked up?  What’s scared you so?"

"…. _met somebody_ ,” you say, focusing on his face, forcing the words out one painful syllable at a time.  ”—while I was out, when I was—found me on the street.  ‘What the fuck you whore you don’t just get to quit like that, I wanted—’  _fuck_.”  Gamzee’s hand tightened on your horn at the word “whore”, the way your voice cracked so pathetically—you try to cover your face, cover the humiliated flush, the watering of your eyes, and you can’t. 

” _A fucker’s cruel-ass words don’t fuck you up so bad, not usual-like,”_  Gamzee murmurs, and goes back to petting your hair, rubbing his other hand gentle up and down your side.  His shoulders are a little tense, but he’s keeping it together—focused on you, not on how angry it makes him when somebody harasses you for quitting your job.  You don’t have an answer—you turn your face away and chew your lip and pretend your eyes aren’t burning.

"What else?"  One cool thumb traces little diamond shapes on your side, your stomach, around your defective gillslits—your breath hitches.  "What else, Karkat?  Brother, come on, can’t help you get through shit if you don’t say it at me."

"…she…" you squeeze your eyes shut, remember her face, her cold eyes.  "…she said…"

—

"—how long do you think you can hide from us?"

You stare at her, taken aback—the words weren’t what you were expecting, and you’ve never worked on a script but there’s a limit to how well you can improvise.

"I’m not hiding."

"Yes you are," she says, and steps closer, into your space—you’re not tiny, but she’s still bigger than you, a  _lot_  bigger.  ”— _you know what we’ll do to him when we find you_.”

"What the fuck—"

"We’re making a list," she says.  " _killcapricorn.alt._ You should check it out. _”_

Your teeth bare without your permission, your spine prickles.  ”—leave him out of this!”

"There’s a lot of people pissed off he stole you from us," she says casually, and there’s something worse than red blood-lust in her eyes, there’s distant, careless cruelty.  "…don’t worry.  We’ll keep those  _killcancer_  idiots off your back, too.”

Your acid sac twists inside you, your eyes watering.  ”What the fuck do you think that will fix?” You hiss at her, but she just shrugs like she doesn’t even hear you.  ”You fuckers talk like you’re just  _so fucking pale for me_ , why can’t you just—why cant you be  _fucking happy_  I’m happy?!  Why can’t I have this?!”

"You sold yourself to us, Cancer," she says, and you take an unwilling step back as she closes into your space.  "—you don’t get to take it back now, you’re  _ours._ ”

"You’re—you  _freak—”_

 _"Keep talking,"_ she says, and leans in close enough you can feel her breath on your face.  ” _…you’ll still take care of us after we come take you back from him._ ”

—

The last few words are so mangled by sobbing you’re surprised Gamzee even understands you—maybe he doesn’t understand you, but he’s heard enough to pick you up and hold you all wrapped up in his arms, bundle you up in his lap like you’re cocooned and squeeze you so tight you can hardly breathe.  The shaking terror comes out in jagged gasps, you have to be getting tears and snot and all sorts of awfulness everywhere, but he just holds you close and shooshes, runs his hands over your skin like he’s desperate to find something he can hold, a wound to staunch.  His thorax hums next to you, you can feel his blood pounding through him, but—

"— _list,_ " you croak out, "—on that—fucking— _can’t let them—_ ”

"We won’t," he assures you, "—whatever the fuck evil shit they plan on, they won’t make it through it—"

"— _torture you,_ " you get out, and he shivers a little, fear tenses through his hands and eases out again in a sound almost like a sigh.  " _—wanna—_ hurt you,  _make me watch,_  I c-can’t, I—fucking— _wrong_  with them, why—”

"Sometimes a fucker just…gets sick up in the pan," he says, and leans forward, tucks your head under his chin so you can feel his squawk-blister hum against your skin.  You focus on that, try to breathe—the list of awful things they said, the things they wanted to  _do_  to him, it keeps scrolling past behind your eyes and you can’t stop shaking, gasping for deep, fast breaths that make the roof of your mouth buzz and don’t seem to get you any air.  ” _A couple sick fuckers, Karkat, but not some god set to come down on us._ Just trolls, love, fuck, just trolls.   _Shooosh.  And we got bigger on our side, bigger and better._ There’s those as love you better, remember?”  He kisses your head, the root of one horn, slips his hand under the back of your shirt to rub cool circles on your overheated skin.  ” _We got the biggest and most baddest of bitches on our side we got me and we got you and—_ fuck, we got the goddamn empress, beloved _,_ they won’t just come in here and hurt not a single one of us.”

"We—could fight," you say, shaky, trying to convince yourself, "—you can—you could—"  You trail off, unwilling to ask from him what’s running through your pan, but the words hang unsaid in the air between you. He makes a low noise, a strange, chittering, feral noise low down in his thorax.  

"For you, love?"  His long, thin fingers loosen and settle, kneading, like he’s finding his grip on a weapon.  For a second, his whole body is harsh angles.  " _For you.  I’d kill a hundred motherfuckers and paint my sign in their blood._  Fuck off, for all them as might come after,  _fuck off,_  he’s mine now.”

"God—" you’re tearing up again, it’s stupid how much your thinkpan is melting at the stupid violent  _awful_  things he’s saying, and you can’t stop smiling even while you nudge your forehead into his cheek.  ”—no—no, I don’t—want you to commit fucking— _hrk_ , no mass murder, that’s a l-last resort—” you sniff, but it’s too late to clean up the awful mess of your face.  You must look terrible.  The panic is starting to fade, and in its wake you’re self-conscious, trembling and wet with tears and worse.  You must look fucking awful. ”—I’m—fuck, I’m okay.  I’m back, I got it.  Here, take these off, I’ll—clean up.  We need to plan for—”

But he doesn’t let you go, and he doesn’t uncuff you.  

"You aren’t in a state to move," he says, and hitches you a little further down so you’re cradled in his arms, weight all wrong to push yourself up, staring up at him.  "—and I figure if I don’t wanna let you go, there’s not shit-all you can motherfuckin’ do about it."

You start to sigh, shaky and reproving, start to say “…Gamzee,” in that way that means “that’s a nice thought but it’s not going to work—” and then stop when he lays his fingers gently over your mouth.  

"Shh."

"Gam—"

” _Shhh._ "  He leans back, reaching for something—comes back with a rag and starts dutifully wiping at your face, careful around your swollen eyes and reddened nose.  "Eyes shut."  You follow orders, baffled, and he wipes your wet gaze-flaps with painstaking care.  He reaches back again, sets the rag aside carefully and brings back a tissue.  "Blow."

You do as you’re told.  He chirrs approvingly, pats your hair and mops you up until you feel significantly more trollish and less like a wrung-out drippy rag.  Then he sighs contentedly, swivels both of you around, and lays you out gently on the pile like some overwrought highblood straight out of a romance novel, in need of romancing.  

"Now," he says, businesslike but with a sort of slow wickedness in his voice, "—let’s get to looking at you.  I think you still need some calming-down."

You open your mouth to deny it but all that comes out is a croaky noise as he scoots around and lies halfway down next to you, easing in closer.  He sets up a slow, hard rhythm palming at your horns, and it’s embarrassing in the wake of the fear how quickly it reduces you to purring and sighing, listening dimly to the sound of your own purr swelling each time he squeezes a horn.

“ _Make you feel so good you’ll forget you ever got fearing at shit,_ ” he murmurs, and you press into him, struggling and whining for as much body contact as possible, breath catching in your thorax.  His hands pull part of the way away to tease your horns.  “— _so soothed down you won’t be moving off this pile for weeks, now will you best friend, not when I’m done with you—”_

“God, _”_  you gasp, and he grins against your ear.  “— _you—filthy motherfucker.”_

“ _Just for you,_ ” he purrs, and kisses your cheek. “Anyway, best friend, who’s the one who’s gotta get his bad self all tied up for the pile? Who went and got himself tied so easy all laid up for me like a motherfucking present?  Figure it’s you, for sure enough.”  He tweaks your horn again and then kisses your forehead—you squeak like a wriggler. He gives a full-throated rumble of a purr, and barely looks chagrined when you glare at him, cheeks hot and eyes prickling.  ”—Sorry, best friend,” he says, and ruffles up your hair.  ”—but you sure as fuck are the cutest goddamn thing when you go all red for me.”

"You evil— _hfff—_ exploitative— _oh_ , yes, that, yes, there,  _more_ —”

You lose track of how long he spoils you for—rubbing your back, your scalp, your horns, rubbing his palms over your skin and telling you stupid shit that makes you try and fail to swear at him,  _you’re so fucking cute_  and  _so good, doing so good for me,_  and  _need you I need you so much, need you here so I can be me, I fucking love you_ —you cry again by the end of it, overwhelmed and red to the shoulders and so goddamn content you’re depending on the slow pressure of his hand rubbing circles on your chest to remind you to breathe.  

You drift off, not quite asleep but not awake either, your head lying on one of his thighs, his arm draped over you and rubbing at your back.  For a long, fucking  _wonderful_  time, you don’t worry about anything at all.

When you come back, Gamzee is talking quietly, and there’s another voice too—oh.  It’s the empress.  You like the empress.  You like her a lot.  You purr louder.  Gamzee doesn’t seem to notice, but his hand does start moving on your back again, scratching gently between your vestigial cartilaginous wing struts.  You remember having your hands tied, once, a little bit ago—the cuffs are gone now, not that you could move much now even if you wanted to try.  You close your eyes and enjoy it, listening.  

"— _wouldn’t go there if I was you, guppy,_ " the empress is saying.  "— _don’t get your gills dirty with that silt.  Your moray-eel there went and saw and there ain’t no point both of y’all gettin’ glubbed up about it._ ”

"Can’t be worse than the shit I’m thinking of what they could—"

” _You crazy?”_   The empress snorts.  ” _Of fuckin’ course it could.  I got my people tracking down the bottom-feeders who post here, we’re going straight to the coral of this shit.  You figure he’ll be up to move?”_

 _”_ I…” Gamzee’s hand moves on your back, nervous.  ”…I’d gotta ask, ma’am.  Before he’d not have wanted—but fuck, I never see him such a mess.  I just—”

He trails off.  He sounds unhappy—some part of you is animal-sad about that, you want to kiss his face.  

” _Yeah,_ " says the empress.  " _They threw out a net for the wrong fish, they’re pulling in more than they wanna deal with.  Might be tempted to fry out some of their_ lists _on them before I let them go._ "  

"Karkat—" Gamzee stops, and then sighs.  "—don’t figure he’d like that though," he says quietly, plaintively.  "He does care so much."  His fingers stroke your hair—push it behind one ear.  Some part of your pan is mumbling you should probably wake up now—that they’re talking about important shit—but the rest of you is too tired, too worn out.  You don’t want to go back to worrying yet.  Gamzee’s got you.  Your goddamn moirail has fucking  _got_  you.

” _I’ll put some of my people in the blocks around you then,_ " says the empress, and you hear her back crack like she’s stretching.  "—mmm _…efin if they do find you, you otter be good with them there._ ”

"God, yeah, please."  Gamzee moves too, shifting like he’s going to stand up—you don’t want to move.  You groan a little and he stills and puts a hand on your hair, heavy and cool.  "… _hell of a day,_ " he says, almost to himself, then—  "—Karkat?"

Your name.  You blink and move and turn your head a little to look up at him.  When you smile sleepily at him his face does something painful and tender and intense and you tug messily at his shirt until he leans down far enough for you to kiss him, because that look makes everything inside you pull tight.

” _Time for a couple worn-out motherfuckers to get their snooze on,_ " he says, and grins a little.  "Say good morning, best friend."

” _Morning,_ " you mumble, and there’s a laugh in the empress’s voice when she says " _Good morning, you cute-ass little cuttlefry.  G’wan, get yourshellf to sleep_."

You don’t hear her sign off, but you feel Gamzee pick you up and carry you, and then the warm slime and his cool arms are carrying you under and you’re asleep and not afraid.

\--

When you wake up, the first thing you notice is that Gamzee isn’t in the slime with you.  There’s a certain kind of tingly contentedness beyond the sleepy haze of the sopor that tells you before you’re even properly awake that you were jamming with Gamzee yesterday, even though you don’t really remember why or even have the pan power to comprehend the question.  For a while you just lie there and sort of restlessly move around, like if you throw out your arms wide enough you’ll find him so you can pull him back in and go back to the snuggling you were undoubtedly doing.

After a couple of restless minutes, though, you’re forced to the realization that no, your moirail is not in the ‘coon with you at all, and if you want to go back to cuddling you’re going to have to actually wake up and go hunt him down.  You pull yourself out of the slime, stagger a little bit and then find your feet.

Gamzee is sitting up in the entertainment block when you wander in—you open your mouth to remind him to get off the couch before he starts drying sopor into it, and then blink and do a bit of a double-take because he’s already showered, sitting up straight and looking unusually sober. His hair even looks washed.  What the fuck.

He tries to smile when you come in, which eases the weirdness a little bit, but it’s still disconcerting, you being the fuzzy-headed, bleary-eyed one shuffling around with sopor in your hair and him sitting up waiting for you with his husktop out.  There’s a weird sense of reversal.  You catch yourself halfway through glancing down to make sure you’re still...yeah, that’s still you.  Fucked-up stunted gill-slits, tinted a little bit pink with your freak blood.  Ugly scar on your side where you fucked up trying to do a spinning sickle whirlwind or some shit and somehow managed to almost disembowel yourself.  That one ill-advised tattoo on the top of your foot, almost hidden by the hem of your pants.  (Of course the first thing you had to do with the advance they gave you for your very first smut film was go out, get drunk and get a diamond tattooed on your person somewhere, why would you  _not_ want to permanently stamp the mark of your trade on your body?) Your thorax—not fat, but not nearly as flat or…well, full of ribs as it would be if you were suddenly Gamzee.  Not that you were worried or anything.  

“What, uh…” you make the effort to stand up straight—shake the fog out of your thinkpan a little bit.  “What are you doing up?”

He looks down at his husktop.  Back up at you.  “…just…figuring,” he says, unhelpfully.  There’s something he doesn’t want to tell you.  You have to sigh.  

“Gamzee.”

“Just figuring what to do about…all that shit, got you all fucked up yesterday.”  

You feel your expression darken.  “ _Gamzee…_ ”

He must hear the warning in your voice—god, it’s like trying to keep track of a wriggler that keeps trying to wander into the ocean for a swim, he needs to stay  _away_  from dangerous shit like this—but instead of looking repentant he hunches in his skinny shoulders and just looks back at you.  It’s not the most impressive face of determination, but that’s unmistakably what it is.  

“Figuring it out,” he says stubbornly.

“…okay…” you come over, and he looks back down at his screen as you sit down.  There may or may not be a healthy dose of patronizing patience in your voice. You’re being kind of an asshole. Hell, you’re being  _really_  an asshole but fuck if you want him anywhere near these freaks and their plans.  “… _what_  did you figure out?”

“Got a plan.”

You raise your eyebrows and wait.  Gamzee looks down at his hands, splayed out in his lap.  Clenches them and then spreads them again.  His claws are growing out—he had you trim them after you both quit your jobs and you never really asked but you think he was trying to distance himself from that…persona.  Trying to stop being the unstable one, the crazy one, the  _dangerous_ one.

Maybe now is the time to be dangerous.  

“If…” he worries at the inside of one wrist with a claw, tracing the tendons and the faint lines of his veins.  “…if those crazy fuckers figured—we were getting cleared out of this hive, like, going somewhere else and they knew where our hive was now but…and the place we went, it was gonna be so safe they couldn’t ever even lay a motherfucking gaze nugget on us? I been talking around a bit, motherfucker, figure they’d come out and try for us then.  And then we could  _fuck up their shit._   Fuck ‘em up real good.”

You stare at him for a second, letting the words sink in.  Honest to fucking god, it’s only your sweeps and sweeps of acting that keep you from opening your mouth and shouting the first profanity that comes to mind, then going from there.  But you’ve spent a long time keeping your face blank and sweet no matter what happens, and now you just sit and stare and stare and stare until you almost feel like you can open your mouth without yelling.

Tell them where you live, give them a deadline. And Gamzee is—

“Bait.”  Your mouth is very dry.  “ _That’s_  your plan?  Gamzee no, that’s a terrible plan.”

“ _Empress thinks it’s a good idea_ ,” says Gamzee quietly, still messing with the hem of his shirt.  “… _not a danger to you, too, being as how you got more crazy fuckers than I do—_ ”

“You have gone shithive,” you tell him frankly. “You  _are_  a crazy fucker.  No, we are not dangling you out as bait in front of a crowd of frothing psychos who want to torture you to death!  How could you possibly think—did you say the empress agrees?”

Gamzee nods.  He looks very small and, you realize for the first time through the shock of fear and anger and confusion…very, very scared.

“Gamzee.”

“ _If they showed up for you, I’d fuckin’ kill ‘em all_ ,” he says, and his claws dig through the fabric of his shirt.  He keeps his eyes on his bare feet, curled up under the hems of his pants.  His whole body is miserable and scared.  “…makes sense, she said, it’ll bring out the ones as really would do the hurting if they could—”

“Gamzee.”

“—how it’s—my fault anyhow, can’t even fuckin’ take care of my own self and then you gotta deal with my shit and that gets all down their throats too and then you got even more trouble—all on account of my stupid-ass b—”

You slap him in the face.

It doesn’t do much good, but it feels  _really_  good, except for your actual hand which is now aching like a  _bitch_ —how can he possibly be that solid when he looks like something a wriggler built out of sticks?  

“Did you just insinuate,” you say, breathing harder than you mean to, blinking faster. “—did you just—that your completely pitiable lack of fucking  _life skills_  is the only reason I love you.  Did you just—?!  Fucker, if you just needed somebody to help you wash your hair you could get a goddamn  _hire_  to do that for you, I’m here because you are my—fucking— _soulmate,_  okay, I believe that and—and if that’s not how you feel, which, I kind of jumped it on you but I’ve—b-been meaning to say it for a while and I just didn’t really know—goddammit, this isn’t what I wanted to say, this isn’t how I wanted to fucking say it—”

You barely feel the cool hands slip through yours, barely feel yourself being slowly tugged forward you’re panicking so hard, but then you’re tugged down and long arms fold up around you, pressing you to Gamzee’s chest, squeezing you close as he rocks a little where he sits, breath trembling in his thorax.  Your voice was shaking, yes, okay, your eyes were  _watering_  with the intensity of your rage, and you absolutely do not thump your head into his thorax and whimper like  scared grub.  

“ _Didn’t ever even figure it needed said,_ ” he mumbles into your hair, and his hands run over you, rub your back, drag through your hair, squeeze your shoulders. “ _Or maybe I’d have might’ve got there first._ ”

‘I’d have might’ve’, oh god.  Your moirail, everyone.  “ _Never speak Alternian again,_ ” you grumble wetly into his chest, and feel the stupid warm glow start to grow in your chest like wildfire because  _you made it official and he didn’t stop holding you_ , because you blurted out your dumb thoughts about serendipity and soulmates and it never even occurred to him you were anything else—

“Gamzee, I’m going to flip my shit,” you say quietly.

“Aw, best friend, no.”

“The good kind.”

He brightens a little.  “Aw, well fuck, so—”

“Remember what you did for me after I panicked the other day?”  You open your sylladex, flipping through it—he lets you go a little, watching with interest as you pick what you want.  You can’t see his cheeks through the paint, but when you pull out the shiny red leather cuffs his ears go bright purple so fast you’re surprised his head doesn’t explode.

“Pile,” you say gently, and cup his face in your hands to kiss him.  “…now.”

\--

It never takes long to break Gamzee down to a shaking mess, but you don’t usually have time to keep him there the way you do this time, teasing and soothing and focusing everything you have on making him feel good.  You have no idea how many trolls cry when someone does this for them—but you’re glad your moirail is one of them, because god knows you are and you don’t have to be embarrassed of all the times he’s seen you crying when you have him laid out and taking great, gasping breaths, tears streaking down his face.  

You cleaned his paint off almost the second you got him laid down—you don’t, always, but if you’re going to commit to a full-scale shoosh-jamming session of epic proportions you want to be able to see his bare face while you do it. You’re not even a cultist, but just from being around him you’re starting to pick up on his weird clown bullshit—you blush when you bring out a rag to clean it off of him, you get an indignant prickle at the thought of somebody outside seeing him without it.  You’re well aware how few people in the world he would willingly show his bare face to.   He’d rather walk through the town naked than bare-faced.  It’s like…armor.  Or a mask, something he uses to protect himself.  Fuck, he’s scared and confused enough of the time anyway, even with it on, he doesn’t need an extra layer of vulnerability on top of that.

…Except for when he does.

You clean his paint off gently, slowly, enjoying every second of it, and mumble clumsy words in his auricular sponge clot the whole time.  Words about how sweet and shy and fucking adorable he looks and how much you want to keep him forever and make things better, make his life  _so much better_.  Words that make him close his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at you as his cheeks flush vividly under what’s left of his paint  Your voice keeps cracking into distracted purrs as you kiss his forehead and cheeks and lips and eyes, enjoying the feeling of his bare skin.

(You’re suave, okay, the most suave and romantic but maybe you just stop for a couple of minutes and sit back and grin down at him and purr for a while.  Maybe even though you’re supposed to be the one making him feel good, you have to take a self-indulgent moment to feel the hum in your thorax and the warm swell of happiness.  You always knew serendipity existed.   _Ha._ )

When you’re cuffed it seems to just make you really squirmy, not least because you keep getting overwhelmingly, breathlessly aware of how kinky the situation is and how awful you are for wanting more even while you know you should be objecting.  But in his case, it just seems to make him more docile.  More calm, amenable.  By the time you finish getting his paint off completely he’s lying still, breathing slow and deep, eyes shut.  He could almost be asleep.

“… _Gamzee_?”

He stirs.  Rolls his head to one side a little to bare his neck to you and smiles softly, content.

“… _Karkat…_ ” his voice gets slurred when he’s not awake enough to make sure it’s clear—those ridiculous highblood fangs getting in the way. He tilts his head back further, far enough you know it can’t possibly be an idle movement.  The whole long arch of his throat, god, all that softness, all those places you could hurt and he trusts them with you.  Your fingertips follow the line of tendons, muscles, the hard knot of his squawk-blister under his skin.  It hums a little under your fingertips, a swallowed purr.  He’s not going to be that quiet by the time you’re done with him.  

You thread your fingers through his and pull yourself up against him, and he wraps himself around you so close you can hear the faint hum of the purr you just felt.

\--

The times you have to calm Gamzee down from one of those twitchy, frantic violent spells are one kind of pale, you reflect to yourself as you pet his hair, and it’s the important kind, in a lot of ways.  Because fuck, who wants murderous pan-fucked highbloods running around all over the place?  That’s important.  Really fucking important.  But it’s a different kind of important from spending time doing dumb shit together in your off-time, or talking about little problems that might get bigger one day, or dealing with the inevitable fucked-up-ness that everybody has somewhere in their pan over  _something,_  or helping them find partners that fit them or blasting your moirail’s thought-sponge out with horn-rubs and then carefully caring for every inch of him.

You get derailed on that last thought for a while just running your fingers through the loose, silky curls of Gamzee’s hair (it’s so goddamn nice if you remind him to take care of it) and smiling at him like an idiot.  

Sometimes you wonder vaguely what you look like when you do this—you’ve seen Gamzee’s face as he takes care of you, his eyes all blown-out black and his mouth hanging halfway open in a sort of distant smile.  Like he’s not inside his thinkpan anymore, he’s in his hands wherever they’re touching you, memorizing you.  He always looks almost as zoned out as you feel.  You only ever remember to think about it when you’ve got him laid out like this and purring, and you never want to go get a mirror afterward. You don’t care quite enough to go look at yourself and find out, and maybe you never will.

“… _tense as hell,_ ” you murmur to him, and run the pads of your fingers off his scalp and down his neck.  He shifts and yawns and opens his eyes sleepily.  “You wanna talk about it?”

He looks sad, scared—transparent wriggler emotions, no masks and no attempt to hide them.  His hands tighten a little bit at his sides.

“… _scared,_ ” he says quietly.  “Don’t want them to hurt me.”

God. You scoot down a little, lift his head off your lap to slide in next to him instead.  His eyes flick away from you unhappily.  

“I don’t want you to get hurt either.”  You stroke his hair out of his face and your hand keeps moving on its own as you stare at him, traces his hairline and strokes the curve of one ear. His fins flutter.  “We don’t have to—”

“We  _do_  though,” he says, and there’s something like anguish in his eyes when he looks back up at you.  He wants it to be true, that you don’t have to do this, that  _he_  doesn’t have to do this. He wants you to convince him. “Best friend we motherfucking do. No choices here not if we want them caught.  Not a motherfucking choice I see.  Not a single plan so sure.”

“ _I don’t like it,_ ” you say, and he sniffs and presses his head into your shoulder.  “I don’t.  I don’t—it’s too dangerous.”

“Rather do it our way than how they got their figure on,” he murmurs. “Rather we were ready.  You think I like thinking on what they wanna—what they could motherfucking—” A shudder runs through him, his fins fold flat with fear. “… _I’m scared too._ ”

“We could...tell them you’d be here, move you somewhere else—” he’s already shaking his head.  

“They gotta find me,” he says, tiny and shaking and you can tell he want nothing more than to let you talk him out of this but he’s holding on.  “They got a  _hate_  in them, not a kind I’ll like but it’ll keep them here.  Draw ‘em in.  It’ll put them in our claws, Karkat— _Karkat,_ I gotta do this, I can’t motherfucking  _not_ —”

He’s getting upset and you don’t fucking blame him.  Hell, you’re upset too, there isn’t a goddamn  _word_  for how upset you are, but it still hurts to hear how shaky his voice is.  It makes something go tight inside you to see how he’s starting to tremble and pull restlessly at the cuffs on his wrists. He’s so scared and you can’t fix it. Not if you want him safe in the end.

“ _Shhh,_ ” you say instead, and wrap yourself around him so you’re face to face, forehead to forehead.  So you can weave your fingers through the dense curls of his hair and stroke his stunted fins with the pads of your thumbs and make his breath catch.  He melts into you and closes his eyes.  “ _I’ll make it okay.  It’ll be okay.  It won’t go wrong, I promise—fuck how dare you be the brave one here._   How dare you.   _I promise, whatever I have to do.  I promise I’ll make_   _this okay._ ”

\--

This is the plan.  Your address gets leaked to the forums— _killcapricorn_  and  _killcancer_  both at the same time, but you don't expect to see anybody here for you.  You were the one who did all the papping in your videos and your crazy fans are the crazier ones.  The ones who want you to take their fucked-up pans and make them all better.  Gamzee’s fans are bitter, there’s one or two who are really intense and might cause a problem, but they’re mostly bashing you in private forums, grumbling  _what a whore, what a douchebag._ Your fans are  _if we tape his mouth he can’t bite_  and  _I’ve got a hand axe specibus, I get his horns—_ you know he’s right.  You know he has to be the bait.  That doesn’t mean you have to like it.  

Anyway.  Your address gets leaked, along with the info that you’re going to be moved to an imperially secured location soon, that these few days are the last chance any of those psychos will get to get at either of you.  If they have any freaks who are actually willing to try out their awful plans for real, they’ll have no choice but to make their move.  And when they do, there will be an entire squad of imperial soldiers on their asses.  

You meet the captain of said imperial soldiers within a day of Gamzee advancing his plan to you, as footsteps overhead and on either side and complaining voices tell you that your neighbors are being kicked unceremoniously out of their hives to make room for what sounds like a whole goddamn battalion of people in really heavy boots.  The captain is a blueblood, huge, wearing a full-body leather and black fabric ensemble that does absolutely nothing to hide the fact he’s built like a goddamn modeliminator.  

“Karkat Vantas,” you say by way of introduction, and then before he can ask: “Cancer.”

“Capricorn,” says Gamzee.  You elbow him.  “Khh—uhh, Gamzee.  Makara.”

The captain walks literally  _right past you._   You turn around to stare after him, and watch him…stop in front of Gamzee.  

Ah. ( _Is a higher-blooded quadrant in hive?  I want you to get them for me.)_   This bullshit.  

You’re about to go marching after him and demand that he acknowledge you because you are richer than probably 95% of the highbloods he’s ever met at this point, but then he starts talking and you slow down a little, listening sharply.  

“I am.”  The captain clears his throat.  You were right there, he could have introduced himself to both of you if…

…there’s an indigo-blue flush slowly spreading over his cheeks.  

“…I am,” he tries again, a little bit strangled, “…a tremendous fan.  Of your work.”

Oh. Oh, well that…doesn’t actually piss you off nearly as much, really.  It’s stupid to have a preference between two people just for fucking blood-color, fuck that, the only way to judge somebody personally as far as you’re concerned is how much ass they can kick.  But you can’t pick what kind of porn you get off on and if he’s into Gamzee’s stuff that’s not your problem.  Plus you have no trouble believing it, he looks star-struck as hell.

“Well you got your fan on better than some motherfuckers I’m all made to be knowing of,” Gamzee says amiably, and holds out a hand.  “Pleasure.”

“What.”  Big guy is sweating pretty hard.  God, the stuff is already beading up on the bridge of his nose.  “I.  Pleasure?”

“To meet you and all, my main motherfucker.”  Gamzee keeps his hand hanging in the air—after a few seconds of staring, the guy reaches out and shakes it very very carefully, barely holding on.  

“Although,” he says, and it’s hard to tell with those glasses on but you think he’s staring at their hands, shaking mechanically.  “…your talents might also have been, hrm—well-served in other…areas…”

“If you’re going to give the ‘porn is a lowly industry for losers’ talk,” you say sharply, “—you can give it to my ten-figure credit pool,  _captain_ —”

“No,” he says distractedly, still shaking.  Gamzee seems content to let the handshake go on as long as the guy wants—you watch, mouth hanging slightly open, looking from the blue-blood to Gamzee and back again.  “No, but…other quadrants might have—“ he’s really blue now.  “Forgive me, it is a lewd suggestion, I should not have—”

“What, like, all get my pitch and flush on at some kin or another?”  Gamzee seems to consider the idea.  You stare at the blueblood, who has sweat dripping off his chin.  “Yeah I mean they filmed a one or two or so, I mean, don’t think they ever posted that shit, but they got their try on.  Got the  _shit_  fucked outta me by this little rusty one time—ow.”

The blueblood’s grip just twitched sharply.  He appears to have stopped breathing.

“Think I could get it if you want it,” says Gamzee, and you grab his arm and pull him away.

“I think you should  _not_  offer your sex tapes to imperial guards, actually,” you say firmly, and pretend you don’t notice the way said imperial guard shifts uneasily, shoulders slumping a little in obvious disappointment.  Holy fucking shit.  “Good god Gamzee we’ve got to work on your social boundaries.”

“Yeah, best friend?”

Lost cause.  For now anyway.  You turn back to the hapless and transparently besotted blueblood and raise your eyebrows at him.  He blushes, if possible, even darker.

“Hey EQ, it’s not like we’re on a tight schedule or anything,” snaps a voice from the doorway, “—Tell me you have some of your shit done.”  

There’s something about that voice.  Something that goes straight through your pan and hotwires your aggravation throbber to maximum, and the rush of abrupt irritation and weird fondness is way too familiar to be a concidence.  You know that lisp.  Holy shit.

“ _Holy shit,_ ” you say, and shove past the blueblood to get a look at the scrawny figure standing lopsided in the door. “Holy shit!  Sollux!”

The skinny yellowblood in your doorway blinks his freaky-ass eyes at you, and with his mouth hanging open like that you can tell he hasn’t done a single goddamn thing to fix the disgraceful mess of his teeth.  Another familiar wave of hate-friendly irritation sweeps over you just at the sight of him.  

“KK?”

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Oh my god, KK.”

“Is that a  _uniform,_ they actually got you into a  _uniform_ —”

“Oh my god.”

“What the fuck is wrong now?  Nice to see you too, by the way, since you greeted me so  _politely_  and everything—”

Sollux points at you accusingly.  “—porn!” He turns to the big guard who is apparently known as EQ.  “You said we were guarding a porn star!”

“Two of ‘em,” Gamzee says, in the tone of voice of somebody who’s trying to be helpful.

“A  _porn star_?”  Sollux’s voice is doing that squeaky thing you remember so well.  It’s awful.  The nostalgia makes your thorax feel all warm and fucking fuzzy inside. “You—a  _porn star_?”

“The most searched-for name in the papping business,” you say, and inspect your claws like your face isn’t burning just a little bit.  From pride or embarrassment, you’re not 100% sure which.

“For the papping part,” Gamzee puts in again, helpful to a fault.  “I done made my name bigger for the getting shooshed and all.   Last video we got on and made together on a stage, that shit’s the biggest hottest motherfuckin’ shit.”

“What?”  You turn back, interested—you haven’t been able to bring yourself to watch the painful process of your past self obliviously toppling horns over heels in love with your costar, not since that first time after you shot it. “Seriously, is that shit still trending?”

“Oh, brother,” Gamzee says blissfully.  “Beautiful and all how a fucker can feel all that real-ass diamond mojo all over.”

“Stop saying all.”  You indulge in a moment of patting yourself on the back, and then turn back to Sollux, who is staring at you with his blank glowing eyes bugging out of his head, and “EQ”, who is so blue he looks like he might be about to explode.  “So yeah, numbnuts, welcome to guard duty and congratulations you’re closer to a celebrity than you’re ever gonna get again.”

“Makes a great watch when you’re out to get food and shit and I’m all stuck in here alone,” Gamzee is continuing behind you, and Sollux’s face is mustardy yellow all over.  “Listenin’ at you all sweet and motherfuckin’ kind, calms a brother right down—“

“Or maybe you shouldn’t discuss your piling habits in front of people either,” you say over top of him, and pretend your face isn’t going red up to the ears. “—Okay, what kind of bullshit tech are you here to pile on top of me, Captor?”

“Who says I’m here for tech?”  Sollux rolls his shoulders in a way that’s probably supposed to look badass, but really it just kind of shows off how scrawny he is.  Man, he could have gone into the same specialty as Gamzee and made some pretty good money, everybody likes a skinny highblood in need of papping but a bony lowblood psychic could make good money on the kink market—

You shut that thought off and smirk instead.  “Because you would rather hang out in empty rooms and watch action through surveillance grubs,” you say, and know by the way his freaky doubled ears flick that you’ve hit the grub on the head and some things never change. “Pretty sure if you actually ended up in a fight you’d cry.”

“Yeah, or maybe I’d fucking  _vaporize_  whatever dumbass was panless enough to pick a fight with me!”

“You—”

“Please,” interrupts the blueblood, and mops at his forehead with a towel, stowing it away again in his sylladex half-soaked with sweat.  He’s effective, you have to give him that, when he steps between you and Sollux you can barely even see Sollux anymore, even though the fucking nerd has apparently grown about three feet and gained exactly zero pounds of muscle mass.  “Give them the devices you brought and complete your mission.  You are wasting time.”

“Your  _lusus_  wastes time,” Sollux grumbles, but his eyes sizzle and things start to float out of his bag, arranging themselves around your hiveblock; surveillance grubs in the corners of the rooms, boxes and things covered in little blinking lights.  Two little metal beads small enough to fit on one of your claws. “Put that in your auricular shell.”

You pick the little thing out of the air and glare at it.  Gamzee turns his over in his fingers, looking sort of dreamily confused.  

“Ain’t really got too much auricular shell to be aware of, bro—”

“Yeah, I know.”  Sollux is arranging something in the corner of your respite block, distracted—he waves a hand vaguely.  “—it’ll stick, just hold it up against one of the membranes on those dumb little things you’re trying to pass off as fins.”

“They could never be—they are not proper fins, of course,” EQ the guard mumbles to himself in the background, a little bit breathlessly.  “—the—mutant and perverted nature of them—true seadweller fins would of course never be given to the same degree of… _exquisite_ sensitivity—”

“Oh my god EQ, calm your tits.”  Sollux waves a hand—a wave of red and blue sparks shoves the guard back a little.  “I get it, okay, I know they’re not  _real fins._ I don’t need to hear about your weird kinks  _again._ If you’ve got time to stand there and drool over how sensitive his fins are—which, seriously, stop—you’ve got time to help me set my stuff up in here.  You know how to wire a grub to a transmitter box.”

“Is that an order?”

Sollux does that little exaggerated jerk of his head that means he’s rolling his eyes.  “ _Yeah,_ ” he says sardonically.  “It sure as fuck is.  Go on, hop to it.”

“Yes,” says EQ, who sounds abruptly like somebody has recently punched him in the stomach.  “ _—sir._ ”

He vanishes into the other block.  You and Sollux look at each other for a couple long seconds, and then he blows out a harsh sigh and rolls his eyes again.

“ _Such a fucking creep,_ ” he says under his breath, and frowns at you.  “…get that in there KK, or I’ll put it in for you.”

“Moving a little fast, aren’t—”

“Is this how a motherfucker should ought to?”

Sollux shuffles over and pokes around for a couple seconds, then gives the little microphone a testing sort of tug—Gamzee squawks a little as it pulls on the web of one stunted earfin—and nods.  “Good.  Now we hear what you hear.  Aaaand if those douchebags show up at your door, we can let you guys know.  The address went out this morning, the think they only have today and tomorrow—you guys…” he sort of half-shrugs to the pair of you as a unit, not looking at either of you.  “—you share a block?” and then, like he's finally looked far enough up his own ass to find his manners, he belatedly looks at Gamzee.  "...Capricorn, right?  CC.  Nice."

“Share a ‘coon, most days,” says Gamzee mildly.  You elbow him furiously in the ribs.  “— _hff—_ ow, what?  ‘s the truth and all, best friend.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No, CC’s right, that’s shit I need to know.”  Sollux is resolutely not looking at either of you, but he’s keeping his voice pretty even.  Professional. Right.  “They’re more likely to get inside and start in on their plan if they think they’re succeeding.  We need one of you to move to another block.”

“I’ll sleep out here,” Gamzee says immediately.  You were opening your mouth to volunteer the same thing—you glare at him. He gives you that kicked-barkbeast look and smiles.  “—better to keep you safe, best friend,” he says, and for a second his hands twitch and his lip curls.  “… _I wanna get my greet on of them anyway._ ”

“But—you hate sleeping without—”

He waves it off, damn him.  “Daymares gonna happen either way, shit like this going down.”

“But—”

“I agree with CC,” says Sollux.  You glower at him.  He shrugs. “if they find you first there’s a chance they’ll just grab you and make a run for it.  We know they’re gonna stick around if they walk in and find Capricorn.”

“Yeah, but—” ( _but stick around to do_ what _, but how quickly will you be able to get him out of there, but can you stop him from getting hurt_ )  

“No worries, best friend,” says Gamzee, and sets about clearing shit off the couches and gathering up thermal wraps to sleep under.

“ _Why the fuck would you put that idea in his pan?”_  you hiss under your breath.  Sollux snorts.

“Your weird pornstar moirail is a big wriggler now, KK, he can make his own life choices.  One of you has to suck it up and be the safe one here instead of spewing self-sacrifice out all over the hiveblock and hoping one of them trips in it.”

“Oh, that is fucking  _rich_ —”

“Captor—sir.”  

You both turn and give the blueblood vicious, glowering looks.  He stops in his tracks then says, more carefully, “…er…the grubs are linked, and the frequencies are tested.  We have full access would you, uh…is there anything else you—”

“No Zahhak, that’s it.”  Sollux rubs a hand over his face and sighs.  “I have equipment to set up,” he says to you, and pulls the strap of his work bag a little more firmly over his shoulder.  He looks really tired all of a sudden—the spark of the fight has gone out of him. He looks back up at you—smiles a little, tired smile. “…pale porn, huh?”

“You never watched any?”

He shakes his head.  “…just makes me feel kinda…” he shrugs.  “Shit all looks so faked.”

You allow yourself, if not a victorious grin, then at least a smirk. A smirk is the least you owe yourself, you figure.  

“Well,” you say, and examine your claws ostentatiously, picking at minute specks of dirt underneath them.  “…that won’t be  a problem with our videos.”

“KK, ew.”

“Whatever, prude.”  You kick out at him half-heartedly—your foot hits sparking red and blue resistance a few inches from his leg.  “Go rub your face against a husktop chitin plate until you feel better then, I don’t give a fuck.”

Sollux rolls his eyes (you think) and the last thing you see of him is one skinny arm and a rude gesture trailing behind him out the door.  

Gamzee comes over to you in the silence after they leave, and puts his chin down on top of your head.  

“Old friend?”  He sounds a little bit dazed—meeting a lot of new people at a time tends to get him that way, you think.  He never had much of a social life before outside of shoots, since living in a dirty, cold basement all day doesn’t do great things for your ability to make hatefriends and influence people.

“Sort of.”  You shrug, careful not to jolt him off.  He hums a little in his throat, soft against the back of your skull.  “He’s a douche.  He’s always been a douche.”

“Yeah, but he’s a douche as what’s friendly to you,” says Gamzee, and paps your forehead gently.  “You got others you knew?  Folks you could get your talk on to?”

“I’m fine, Gamzee.”

“Gotta talk to some motherfucker other than me  _some_  time, brother.”

He’s right.  You know he’s right.  You roll your eyes and sigh, but reach up over your head and squish his cheeks between your palms anyway.  

“Fucker.”

He kisses the top of your head.  “Love you too.  Ain’t that a miracle and all, how that shit is always there?”

You roll your eyes again, a little harder this time—miracles again, goddammit. But hell, if it makes him happy. You’re not going to shit on that, especially because you’re tired as hell and you don’t want to have one of your half-assed miracle arguments today.

“Talking on which,” says Gamzee brightly, and disengages from you abruptly, stretching his skinny arms up over his head.  You let out a complaining sort of noise, loud and entirely unintentional, and then cross your arms and pretend you aren’t utterly pathetic.  Gamzee doesn’t notice—he’s still stretching. You poke him vindictively in the gills and he yelps and abruptly lands about three feet to one side like a startled meowbeast, ears high and fins flared.  He’s bristling and wide-eyed and it’s fucking hilarious and—alright, so it’s adorable.  Sue you. Your moirail is the most goddamn adorable.  He breaks up laughing a second later anyway, and he should really be pissed off at you for poking him when he was vulnerable but god he is so awful at common sense.  

“I had to,” you say, as serious as you know how, but your voice keeps almost cracking. “It was such a good target.  What were you going to do, before you bared the surface of your entire organic processing body-cavity to me and I taught you a harsh lesson?”

“Sermon day,” Gamzee says, and then make a tiny squeaking noise and skitters away to one side as you poke at his side again.  “ _Karkat…_ come on, brother.” He’s giving you the baby-barkbeast eyes.

“Fine, fine.”  You hold up your hands.  “Go watch your weird clown shit.  I’m making midnight sustenance.”

“Toast me some grubloaf.”

“Toast your own grubloaf.”

Barkbeast eyes.  Goddammit.

“…one slice.”

“Two slices?”

“Don’t make me slap you in the gills.”

_KK I am throwing up in my nutrition extraction cavern a little over here._

You jump and slap at your ear on instinct—all it gets you is a sore ear and Sollux laughing, staticky and soft from the transmitter in your ear.  Your cheeks are suddenly burning.  

“You fucking  _voyeur_!”

 _Hey, you knew the observation grubs were up,_  says Sollux, and you can hear the shit-eating grin in his voice.  He takes a slurp of something—fuck, you would bet hard cash that it’s one of those awful cheap energy grubs he was always bolting down back when you were kids.   _You knew there were people watching, are you sure I’m the perv here, KK?_

“Yes!”

Sollux just sniggers in your ear, that awful, annoying laugh, and then the line goes dead again.  Gamzee has his head on one side, poking at the fin that has the transmitter stuck on it.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?”  You ask grumpily, and he makes a discontent noise and rubs at his ear.

“Fucking  _buzzes,_ ” he whines, and then winces as he tugs at his fin.  “Feels  _weird._ ”

“Well it’s there to save our asses,” you say firmly.  “Stop picking at it.  Go watch your clown thing.”

You toast two slices of grubloaf, and you really must be too long out of the business because when Gamzee notices and picks you up to swing you around your cheeks burn and your gastric sac flutters in a really fucking embarrassing way.  

Neither of you goes out that night.  You have plenty of food in the thermal hull, a shitload of movies sitting around, and nowhere to be that’s safer than where you are.  They’ll wait until both of you are asleep, you’re sure of that.  They’ll try to get to him before you can wake up and come find them.  It’s him they want to hurt.  

You try to forget that as you huddle up to Gamzee’s side and watch troll Sandra Bullok slap her pitch-crush in the face and spit out a dramatic confession, but you don’t let go of his hand the whole time.

 _KK,_  says Sollux’s voice finally, as you try to argue for another movie, one more— _KK, come on. Sun’s coming up.  Get in your ‘coon._

“But—”

 _CC_?

Gamzee sits up a little straighter.  “Yeah?”

_Make him go.  He has to be out of the picture._

“…’kay.”  Gamzee looks down at you, and you can see the same tension in him that you’re feeling. The same long, shaky breaths. “…best friend…”

“I know!  I fucking know.”  You stand up sharply.  Your body feels like a puppet, all disjointed and wrong, not quite doing what you want it to. “I know, okay?  I heard it.”

Gamzee pushes himself up and reaches out, reeling you in until he can press you against his skinny chest and press his cheek between your horns.  You hold out for a second and then grab him and hold on tight, memorizing every detail.  

“ _…’ll be okay,_ ” he mumbles, but when he squeezes you you know he’s not sure, he can’t possibly be sure.  “just motherfucking fine.  I got my believe on.”

You stand there for god knows how long, just holding each other, just breathing, before there’s a crackle of static that might be Sollux trying to clear his throat in (who’d fucking believe it) a tactful kind of way.  You break apart, and Gamzee doesn’t bother to pretend he’s not wiping his eyes, careful not to disturb his paint. You kind of…duck your head and scrub at them really fast.  You know the surveillance grub picks it up anyway.

“Keeping that on?” You nod at his painted face—he blinks at you, confused. “Your face.”

“Oh.” He touches one cheek, traces the line of his smile absently.  “…yeah. No, I…yeah.  I need that shit today.  For getting all about ready to take what’s coming and for being as how there’s heretical motherfuckers getting their peep on in every motherfuckin’ block.” He looks right up at the surveillance grub in the corner—Sollux mutters  _…heretical…_  in your ear, but otherwise manages to keep his gaping nutrition cavern shut on the topic.  “…get to sleep, best friend.”

“Yeah.”

You stop in the doorway to look back at him one last time.  He’s settling himself in on the comfort stub you used to be lying on together.  As you look, he reaches out a hand and gently touches the place your body used to be, the warmth you must have left on the cushions.

Your eyes are burning.  You scrub at them again, angry and harsh, stomp into your block and drop into the slime in your jeans with your eyes tight shut.  

 _He’ll be okay,_  says Sollux’s voice in your ear, and you don’t know which one of you he’s talking to, but being reassured is almost worse than being scared, and as the sopor sleepiness slides over you like slow fog, you curl up tight and wish there was somebody to hold you.   _We got this. Go to sleep._

\--

You don’t remember falling asleep, and you don’t know why you wake up.  Maybe it’s a creeping sixth sense, maybe it’s a muffled noise from the next room, maybe it’s the crackle of your earpiece starting up.

_KK._

You ease up in your slime, blinking hard.  You know he can see you—you nod.

 _KK,_ Sollux hisses again.   _Get up.  Get up_ now.

You pull yourself out of the ‘coon, land light on your feet.  You start to pull on a shirt—you feel so fucking exposed—hesitate and resist the urge.  You want to look like you would for a shoot, you want to look nonthreatening, in charge but not intimidating.  You don’t pull your sickle.  You don’t get dressed.  You listen.

You can hear it, now you’re listening—thuds.  Muffled noises, a voice badly stifled.  Hissing.  Cursing.  Oh god, it’s happening.  Oh god, god god god—

“ _We won’t even touch him yet if you fucking_ shut up, _”_ somebody is growling—the muffled voice gets suddenly louder, the hand shaken off, and you know it’s Gamzee’s, you knew already, but the sound of him still makes your insides go cold and painful.  

“If you figure I’mma sit my ass down and let you even  _touch_  my fuckin’ moirail you heretic unfunny—”

“ _Hold him down,_ ” somebody hisses, and as somebody tries to muffle Gamzee’s voice again you can hear the faint creak of floors in the hiveblocks overhead, in the one next door.  The empress’s people are moving.  

You creep to the door, stomach a tight, white-hot knot, and hear Gamzee snarl. The sound of snapping fangs mangles the noise into something brutal that sends a tight, instinctive shiver down your spine.  Somebody else gives a sharp, pained hiss.  “Fuck!  _You little_ —” a sharp noise—a slap, the  _crack_  of knuckles hitting flesh.  Gamzee gasps in pain and then growls again.  

“ _Fuckers should’ve left him alone,_ ” he says, warped by snarling, and the noise almost covers the way his voice is trembling, “— _come in here to fuck up his life, come in here to FUCKING FORCE HIM—_ “ and then his voice breaks into a different noise, a sharp choke, and there are harsh laughs.  You can hear his breath rattling from here like there’s something around his throat, where are the empress’s soldiers,  _where are they_ —

“Here,” somebody is saying, and there’s a chorus of sniggering, of  _oooo_  like somebody has introduced a new game, “—here, this’ll make it more fun.  Hold him still.”

“ _Stop,_ ” Gamzee breathes, sudden and harsh and  _scared_  and angry, and you can hear how he can’t breathe and you can hear the helpless fury in his voice and your feet are moving before you can help yourself.  “Fuck you, get that shit away from me,  _you can’t—_ ”

“Leave him alone!”

There are seven of them, some big, some smaller, you can’t tell blood colors, but when they turn to look at you you see the identical shift of hungry longing in their eyes.  The biggest one has Gamzee’s arms twisted up behind his back, a piece of rope twisted into a rough noose around his throat that she’s holding so tight you can hear the desperate, rattling wheeze from across the block.  A couple of them have bruises rising on their arms and faces, clawmarks in colors that match the spatters on your moirail’s bare chest and arms. They have to have somebody holding each of his legs to keep him from kicking.

…there’s a great dirty slash of skin scrubbed roughly bare across Gamzee’s cheek, a humiliated blotchy flush through smeared paint, and your claws twitch and for a second you can’t bear it, your hands ache for a sickle.  They’ve stripped his shirt off already, dragged his pants halfway down his hips with their claws, leaving bloody welts across his belly.  There’s a paint-smeared rag in the hands of the one in front and your guts boil and twist until you feel like you could throw up.   _This’ll make it more fun._   ( _stop, you can’t, get away from me_ ) You’ll kill them.  You’ll  _fucking kill them._

The earpiece the empress’s people gave you is saying something, tinny and distant—the roaring in your ears half drowns it out, your eyes are burning.   _There could be more,_  says a voice in your ear, and some part of you understands, even while the rest of you is sobbing and snarling and spinning out of your control.   _Draw out the others.  You got this, KK, you got this.  We’re right here, we’re ready to go but you have to_ get the rest of them in here—

“Cancer,” says one of them breathlessly—the rest of them murmur. Gamzee starts to say something and the big one holding him jerks on the rope noose so hard his head snaps back, his breathing cuts off in a sharp choking gasp.  “ _Shut up, you_ ,” the big one growls, and then goes back to smiling soppily at you.  “Oh my god, we woke you up, I’m sorry—”

“You didn’t just want to hurt him,” you say distantly, barely listening.  The earpiece is still saying something at you—you stare at them and don’t hear a word. “You did your fucking research, didn’t you?  Humiliation can be…just as bad.”

Gamzee’s eyes flicker from you to the trolls around you and back to you, wide and petrified—you’re not sure whether he’s more scared of what they’ll do to you or what they’ll do to him, but he looks terrified either way.  You meet his eyes and take a deliberate breath.  He holds your gaze like a lifeline, leans back to ease the pressure on his throatstem, and breathes with you.  Your pusher knots inside you with how goddamn scared you are and how fucking much you love him.

“You really do need help, don’t you?”  You say, and for the first time in your life, acting is lying.  Your smile is a mask.  Your whole body is a single burning untruth.  “Come here.”

“—the plan,” one of them starts to say, but they seem mesmerized by your outstretched hands, eyes fixed.  Gamzee’s face creases with pain, and you know it’s not because of the noose—he tries to choke something out and you meet his eyes again, praying to god he knows, and if he doesn’t know then he can trust.  

“Fuck the plan,” says the one with the rag, and tosses it away, easing closer to you with wide eyes.  He’s playing up the  _oh look I’m so dangerous, I’m so on edge_  look, the wide eyes, the wary walk, and your lip wants to curl.  You smile instead, welcoming.  “ _Fuck_  the plan, fuck Capricorn.  We can get to him later.”

“If you can even think about hurting somebody, after I’m done with you,” you say, and your voice is almost steady, the fakeness of the stupid, scripted words curdles on your elocution flap.  “—which I doubt.”  You smile, tilt your head on one side.  “—the rest of you too, come on.  Come here.  Hell, I bet there are more of you out there too, aren’t there?  Bring them in too.  I think you all need—”

“Not as much as us though,” says one of them hungrily, and they’re slowly easing away from Gamzee, coming toward you—Gamzee lies perfectly still, eyes flickering from to another and then back to you again, urgent and scared.  “We—we need you more.”

“You’ll be the closest to me,” you say evenly, and back a little away, drawing them back, watching them follow you slowly. The big one jerks the rope sharply a couple of times then drops Gamzee—the end of the rope around his neck is tied to his arms, so he has to hold them at a painful angle behind him or cut off his own air.  He makes an almost inaudible sound in his throat, arching his back and gasping, and you want to tear their blood-pushers out.  “Bring them in.  Go on, somebody message them and bring them in.  It’s nice to share.”

Somebody pulls reluctantly away, you hear keys being pressed, and the others move in closer, closer and closer, their hands touch your shoulders and chest and face.  You force a chirr out for them—it’s like the noise breaks a dam.  They press forward, squeeze in around you, arms wrap around you and voices rise and fall in satisfied, giddy chirrs and purrs that make your gastric sac twist.  Hands touch your face, your throat, slide through your hair. Somebody’s claws scrape past your horns, and you make a noise that’s completely involuntary, a pained, terrified gasp you didn’t even manage to pretend was pleased.  If a single one of them notices, they don’t care.

“Look at his face,” somebody sniggers in your ear, and for a second you think you misjudged this, misjudged them, think they’re doing this to you on purpose—but then the others are half-turning and you open your eyes and see Gamzee’s face as he watches them touch you.  You have to bite your lip so hard you taste blood, and the sob strangles and dies in your thorax.  You can deal with this, you can fucking  _live_ with this, but that  _look…_ it’s un-fucking-bearable.  You have to look away, stare at the ground between you and Gamzee, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.  It takes every fiber of your self-control, every second of your practice being something you’re not to resist the urge to pull your sickle and hack and slice into the hands on your skin are gone.  “You like that?  No?  Too fucking bad!  You keep your eyes up here, we’ll show you what he deserves.”  

Gamzee makes a vicious, keening noise through his fangs, struggling against the ropes again—coughs and chokes and slumps back, panting.  His eyes are too bright, the wiry muscles working his bare shoulders as he strains at the ropes but you’ve seen those before and he can’t break them.  Those were made for bloodcastes like his.  All he’s going to do is hurt himself.

“He won’t get loose no matter how much he fights,” you say, and it comes out far off, detached and calm and firm.  The words burn like hot iron coming out of your mouth.  You see Gamzee look up at you and he hears what you’re saying.  Slowly, so slowly, fighting his instincts and his fear every moment, you see him force himself still again.  You give him the slightest hint of a smile, but by the look on his face you don’t think it helps much.  God, the rest of these fuckers needs to get in here, finish this, make it  _stop_ — “—ignore him.”

“ _Still wanna hurt him,_ ” one of them snarls, and fucking god you can smell a rush of pheromones at the thought, somebody’s sick arousal. “ _Gonna rip his horns off and fuck him with ‘em, see if he—_ “

“Shoosh.”

“But I want—”

You reach back, find a horn and squeeze,  _hard_.  You get a whimper for your trouble, and the awful smell-taste-feel of the pheromones dies off.  

“ _Shoosh._ ”

Somebody kisses you before the sound is even done—you press your lips tight together and pretend it’s because you’re smiling.  Your hand finds keratin and you squeeze, imagine snapping your wrist to one side, imagine how blood would coat your hands, how they would scream—they chirr and press into the touch.  You run your hands over faces and bodies and horns at random, blind and sickened and scared, barely managing to keep your touch light instead of thrashing and pushing them away.  Somebody has their cheek against the back of your neck, somebody’s fangs are so close to your throat and you can’t breathe, you can’t  _breathe_.  Gamzee’s voice chokes  _stop it, fucking_ stop it _he doesn’t want—_ before there’s a heavy thud of meat on meat and he gags and chokes.  

More voices, new voices, through the hazy blur of touching and being touched—four, maybe five more.  It takes all your strength to make your voice work.  Somebody’s hands are rubbing your horns, and you can’t fight and the terror is a black, rotting abscess in your guts.  Your muscles won’t do what you want, and Gamzee’s not there to hold you and god you’re going to cry, it’s too much and they won’t  _stop—_

“All of you?”  You get out, slurred and wrong.  “—all you?  Here?”

“God,” says a voice, shaky and worshipful, and another hand touches one horn, your legs try to buckle under you.  “God yes, we’re here…”

“All?”

“All of us who were brave enough to come—”

“ _Sollux,_ ” you croak, and hear the sound of running feet and the voice in your ear cuts through the eerie harmonics of would-be pale noises, yelling at somebody on a different line  _go, GO GO GO, GET IN THERE._

A pair of hands tighten on your horns, merciless with the shock, and your muscles turn to water.  None of them quite catch you in time, you end up half on your knees and wavering.  You can’t pretend anymore, not like this, it’s fucking unbearable and they’re shutting your body down and you can’t keep in the noises that are trying to come out. Painful whines, clicking noises of distress and terror, they’re not listening they don’t care and you can’t breathe you can’t  _breathe—_

“ _Get on the ground and put your hands over your heads_!”

Something grabs you hard, like a huge hand all over your body—you’re limp, half-paralyzed, and it throws you bodily out of the press of hungry hands and bodies, rolling you across the room and leaving you panting on the floor, taking huge, grateful gasps of air and struggling to get control of your body again.  You see boots, long black coats, bright indigo trim—bluebloods, all of them and not just the captain.  A full squad of Ruffiannihilators.  Some part of your thinkpan whispers  _holy shit, maybe she really does like you_.  The rest of you is too busy trying not to cry from sheer relief and terror.

“ _Karkat—_ “

You turn your head—Gamzee stares back at you, struggling back onto his knees, tugging at his hands behind his back—the rope around his neck pulls tight again and he makes a frustrated, strangled noise, staring at you, terrified.  You mouth words at him, but they barely come out.  Your face is wet.  When did you start crying?  ( _why didn’t they stop when you started crying_?)

“I said  _on the ground,_  scum!” shouts the voice from the doorway, and you recognize the hint of a lisp a second before you feel red and blue sparks skate over your skin like a phantom touch.  You’re lifted up like a doll, dropped up against the wall, leaning awkwardly against Gamzee’s side and god, the idiot nuzzles into your hair and makes choked noises, presses close and tries to soothe you.  His blood smears on your skin and clothes.  You can barely lift your hands.

“ _Shhh,_ ” you get out, and that’s all you can do, that’s the limit.  “ _Shhhhh. Sh-shh._ ”

“Zahhak, get these fuckers secure,” snaps Sollux’s voice overhead, and you break off your attempts to shoosh your distraught moirail and his attempts to shoosh a distraught you and half-turn to glance back at the raiding party that has abruptly filled your little entertainment block to bursting.  The ruffiannihilators are wrestling your attackers to the ground, and you’re dizzily, viciously glad to see that they’re not being gentle about it.

“Settle down wrigglers, we have enough cuffs for everybody.”  Sollux twitches a hand—the big one who was holding Gamzee’s arms slams flat on her face, and the knife she was pulling goes spinning out of her grip.  “Don’t even think about it, moonshine.  And while I’m on the subject, would you get Makara untied already?!” he rounds on Zahhak—Zahhak starts a little, affronted, making the slightest echo of a formless, growling rumble in the pit of his thorax.  “Don’t test me, you know they put me in charge of this clusterfuck for a reason and I’m not scared of your ‘big scary blueblood’ routine.  Get on it!”

Zahhak is very delicate with the whole affair, you’ll give him that—he mumbles something that might almost be  _excuse me for this_  as he puts a hand carefully on Gamzee’s shoulder, bending him forward to get at his hands—he’s blue all over his face and down the back of his neck, and there’s a prickling of sweat over the bridge of his nose.  He barely seems to touch the ropes, but they snap in his fingers like thread and then Gamzee is loose, gasping in air, coughing roughly.

The instant his hands are free he’s back on you, touching your face, your horns, your chest and hands like he’s afraid he’ll find wounds there.  His touch is so gentle after theirs, so tentative and so careful, and you lean in and close your eyes, breathing as slow and calm as you can.  He’s paying attention to you, listening to you, and you can feel it—if you wince, he pulls his hands away and waits for you to press closer again.  If your breathing starts to shake he pets your hair and shooshes you.  His voice is hoarse and rough from the choking pressure. You want to kill them all.

“ _Brother please,_ ” Gamzee is saying, and you blink blearily and move a sluggish hand, patting clumsily at one knee.  “ _Best friend, best friend please the fuck did they do to you, ‘m so sorry sorry I’m sorry—”_

“Merely a very mild form of diamantic shock, I believe,” says Zahhak, almost civilly, and Gamzee jerks up to stare at him like he forgot there was anybody but you and him in the room.  “He will be very weak for a while, but no permanent damage has been done to him.”

“—‘s okay,” Gamzee says, and there’s a feverishness to his hoarse voice, an almost wild look in his overbright eyes. “—that’s okay, best friend, I’ll—you’ll be—fuck—” he buries his face in your shoulder, rocking back and forth, squeezing your limp body close.  With mighty force of will, you get your neck muscles to semi-cooperate and flop your head forward toward him.  Well—actually you kind of bang your ear into his, but at least he gets the hint and cradles you closer instead of just squeezing you and rocking like a distraught wriggler.  His breath is shaking—after the fear, after the adrenaline, here you both are and you can barely move to help him as his shoulders heave and shudder—one gulping sob, then another, then he’s just crying, great shaking noises that hurt to listen to.

“ _…all okay,_ ” you mumble, slurred against his neck, and raise a wobbly hand on an arm that feels about like a dead fish to pat aimlessly at whatever part of him you can reach.  Zahhak clears his throat, getting sharply to his feet and bustling off to…do whatever, you don’t fucking care, you can feel Gamzee shuddering under your hands.  “ _Okay…now. W’re okay._ ”

“ _It’s not okay,_ ” he mumbles, and his breath catches—his whole body seizes around you in racking coughs, his hand presses to his throat.  “ _Not_ okay,” he gets out, around coughs and wheezes, and presses his face into your hair, kisses your forehead and eyes and horns and lips like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go.  You can hear his breathing rattle in his thorax, choked between sobs and his bruised throat.  “ _Not okay not fucking—_ fuck,  _fuck, this shit is the very most unfunny shittiest_ not OKAY—!”

“ _Shhh,_ ” you mumble, and lay a shaky hand on his arm and feel safer as he snarls than you ever did while they crowded around you and purred.  “ _Gamzee, shh, please._ Please.”

He’s still growling, but he buries the sound in your hair and rocks you back and forth as you close your eyes and let yourself go limp.

\--

They put you in a four-wheel device in the end, because your body is still getting used to the idea that it’s not paralyzed or dead and you can walk but not far.  Gamzee seems well up for the idea of carrying you, but you shoot that idea down pretty quickly.  At least this way your arms get a workout.  

You wheel yourself down to the local legislacerator hub, swatting Gamzee’s hands off the handles every time he tries to push you, although you do let him walk beside you and keep a hand hovering on and off of your shoulder.  You don’t blame him—he hardly ever leaves the house, and being out in the streets like this makes him shaky and twitchy.  

When they take you into the observation block and he sees one of the fuckers who was in your house, the twitching turns into a full-out shake.  His hands clench and crook and settle restlessly at his sides, like he’s constantly stopping himself from slamming through into the interrogation block and taking justice into his own claws.  You put a hand on one of his, and squeeze as hard as you can (which isn’t all that hard still, fuck,  _you_  know what you want but your muscles won’t get the message).  He doesn’t still, but the hand you’re touching goes slack and then his fingers thread through yours.

"Does this sound familiar?"  A compact little powerhouse of an officer—oliveblood, by the battered coat slung around her shoulders—is leaning on the table when you look back at the window. There’s a friendly smile on her face, but it’s strangely blank.  You can’t get a single fucking clue of what’s behind that smile, and by the unnerved, sullen look on the face of the fucker behind the table, neither can he.  “It’s credited to your RIP address!”  She scrolls down on a pocket palmhusk, holds it up and reads off it just a little too loudly, just  _almost_  mocking.  “--'we can heat them up in the nutrition block, haha, i bet we can get them white-hot'--"

"It was a joke," the purpleblood blurts out, and then flushes furiously.  "It's just a vent-blog, okay, we were just frustrated!  There's no law against a little bit of dark humor, man--"

“Officer Leijon, to you!”  says the oliveblood brightly.  “And actually yeah, you’ve broken a  _ton_  of claws!  Nobody could look at this and think it was just a couple of furrustrated fans letting off steam.  There are plans to break in silently!  There are plans to compensate for Capricorn's blood color, his strength, his rages, everything, and links to sites where you can buy cuffs and ropes that will restrain a highblood, and some links to some really purretty terrible videos from old subjugglator interrogations.  There are plans for the kind of pale rape you were intending to purrpetrate on Cancer in front of his moirail.   _There were plans--"_ she raises her voice over top of the prisoner's as he starts to protest.  "--to render the body unrecognizable and dispose of it!  These are more than just venting and furstration.  And most impurrtantly, none of that matters because we don’t need to even use these as evidence!  Don’t forget where you were clawt and what you were doing when we clawt you!  My pawtner and I don't appreciate the flippant way you're treating the truth."

"Don't appreciate it at all," says another voice, and the familiarity of it makes you jump.  Terezi comes swinging out of the shadows by the window, all in black and teal and red, swinging her cane in slow circles.  “Let me taste that list, will you pouncillor?”

“Absolutely,” says officer Leijon graciously, and passes over the tablet.  Terezi sniffs it, then gives it a long lick.  She smacks her lips a few times, then shudders theatrically and grimaces like she just tasted something foul.  

“…I see,” she says, very quietly but very grimly. “… _’yeah.  Yeah, I wanna do his horns.  How fucking great is it gonna be?  Who wants to hold his head still while I crush them up—_ ”

You don’t realize you’re snarling until Gamzee’s big, cool hand spreads across your thorax, muting the hum of the sound—his other hand on your back, rubbing circles.  His fins are blanched, his ears are pinned back—but he looks at you like he’s scared for you.  The snarl won’t stop.

“— _gills and fins_ ,” officer Leijon says in the background—you hear her from somewhere far away, bits and fragments coming through.  You can’t make out more than that, can’t seem to move, so you just stare wide-eyed and fixed somewhere past the black cloth and purple dye of Gamzee’s shirt, feeling yourself as though you’re somewhere half a foot behind yourself. Like you’re only connected to yourself by the thinnest possible threads.  Words float past you.  “— _as you know—and his religion, which is just—was a fan of Cancer too!  But he’s moved on and you have to suck it up and_ —”

“ _I haven’t finished reading the list of intended crimes,_ ” hisses Terezi’s voice, cutting through the static in your thinkpan, and you squeeze your eyes shut and wish you could remember how to get up and run away.  “I think we should consider trying some of these on the accused. Shall we take a look at the possibilities?   _We’ll have to get rid of his claws somehow, the more painful the better,_ haha _—_ ”

You can’t find the words to say to let out the scream building inside you, you can’t find your hands to slam them over your auriculars, you can’t breathe, but you don’t need to because Gamzee reaches down, picks you up and takes long strides out, away, through the door and leaving the noises behind you.

You don’t know how long he holds you, how long you sit there, fading in and out.  He sits down with you, holds you in his lap, you know you’re curled up against his thorax, but you can’t find the comfort in it.  Every time you start to get calmed you think about it again and you’re gone, sinking under into that mindless, snarling place that lives in the spaces around your spine and the base of your throat. The images keep pounding through your thinkpan, the thought of what they would have done to him if you hadn’t been ready, if the empress hadn’t known, if you hadn’t been able to get help, the thought of the pain making him sob and struggle and scream—

“ _Shhhh,_ ” Gamzee murmurs endlessly through the fog, and picks up your shaking hands in his, pulling you up closer to him as you snarl and shiver and try not to cry, terrified and furious.  “ _Shhhh, they won’t now, best friend, they didn’t, they fuckin’ couldn’t_ ever _—”_

“How—” Your voice cracks, threatens to break into a sob. “—they think I  _want_ —that I’d be okay with—they think—”

"Um…"

You jerk upright with a noise that’s more like a whimper than a growl, shock clearing out some of the fog in you, teeth bared and already going for your sickle --but it's just officer Leijon, holding two cups of coffee and looking surprised and embarrassed.  The embarrassment pings something inside of you, something more trollish and less animal than the furyand the fear.  It’s something to hold on to, and you fight for it with every rational part of your pan, struggling to get hold of yourself. Right.  Public room.  Public cuddling.  Your throat is burning from the endless snarls and the strangled sobs, and you can’t stop the tremors in your hands.  Your eyes burn.  

Coffee.  Officer. Troll things.  

Gamzee glances down at you, a question in his eyes—he starts to pull away and you make a complaining noise, pulling him back with all your (still meager) strength.  He smiles a little and keeps you held close.  Winds his fingers through yours.

"I, um."  Officer Leijon smiles at you almost shyly, and holds out the cups.  "I thought you might need a pick-me-up!  Since things are so terrible right now."

That--that is surprisingly thoughtful of her, actually.  Very polite for an officer of the law.  Usually the higher up you go in the power structure the more of an asshole you are, but you can't see any passive-aggressive jab behind two cups of coffee and a smile.  You take the cup, and Gamzee suffers to untangle one hand from you and take the other, sniffing at it suspiciously.

“… _get any…confessions yet_?”  Your voice is a hoarse rasp.  You clear your throat, but it doesn’t help much.  “Not like you need them, they fucking—not…like you need them. But.  Any of those fuckers crack yet?”

“No, but if we can get who they were working with out of them, we can crack down on  _all_  of them!”  Officer Leijon looks very pleased at the thought.  “We’re on the hunt!”

Well, scaring the information out of them shouldn’t be that hard, with these two on the case.  You know full well how terrifying Terezi can be when she gets intense about something and from what you’re seeing Leijon’s blank, happy ruthlessness is almost as bad.  You would not like to be on the other side of their table.

You realize the cup is slipping in your weakened fingers a second too late.  You try to squeeze harder, then realize in a split second it’s not going to be enough and jerk your hand as hard as you can away from you just as the cup goes tumbling out of your hands.  Hot coffee slops scaldingly over your fronds and one leg, splashing across the floor—you jerk and let out a strangled howl at the burning pain and Gamzee yelps.  You hear more splashing and wince forward, but thank god Gamzee’s hands jerk hard enough in his shock the cup doesn’t splash on you.  

“Fuck!”  His hands pat at your burned arm and fingers, and his skin is cool and soothing.  “Fuck, bro, you okay?”

“Yeah.”  You take a couple of deep breath, calm yourself over the pain. It’s dying away the longer he slides his cool palms over your scalded skin.  “Ow.  No—don’t quit.  It’s helping, okay?   _Ow_  because this stuff is basically the only thing on the planet hotter than my blood that isn’t literal molten fucking  _rock_ , not because of you.  Keep doing that.”

He goes back to fussing over you, and you’re too zoned out to think about how you just sank back into persona a little, how that was maybe like four-hundred-fucking-percent too intimate for a public room with somebody standing right there staring at you.  

“I think,” says Officer Leijon, very quietly, and when you get a glimpse of her face past Gamzee’s side, you can see that her cheeks are bright olive.  “…I think…he would like you to take him home now.  Uh…Mr. Capurrcorn.”

\--

Getting the four-wheel device down to the ground level was a pain in the ass, and Gamzee doesn’t even bother getting it back up, just picks you up out of your seat and takes the stairs three at a time—fuck him and his long legs, but they do get him places in a hurry. He gets back to your hiveblock and shuts the door behind you, fumbles the lock shut with one hand and then slumps down right there inside the door, hugging you up against his thorax with one hand on your back, one hand on your hair.  

“I’m okay,” you say, and you mean for it to come out annoyed but you kind of fail.  It’s closer to helplessly amused and edging dangerously near tender. “Seriously.  Gamzee seriously, we’re safe here now.  Hell, we’ll be safer once we move—”

And then he kisses one of your horns, just the barest brush of his lips near the root, and you squeak and shiver all over like a poked grub.  For the first time, you think to really look him over instead of just worrying about how to calm him down—he’s not shaking, not breathing hard—or at least not harder than you would expect after having him carry you up a couple flights of stairs. There’s a kind of frenzy to the way his hands shift over you, but it doesn’t feel like the hungry need for reassurance you’ve been getting from him for the past couple of days.  More like it was on the good days before this happened. Like he wanted to wrap you up against him so close you would—do something that’s not really as romantic as you wish it was, probably.  Fuck.   _I wish we could melt together and never leave each other again_ sounds nice until you start to think about it and then you just kind of—

…oh, that feels  _really_  nice though.  Whatever he’s doing with his hands on the nape of your neck, it’s just…it’s so goddamn…

“…miraculous?”  Gamzee sounds amused, and kind of wondering and kind of…what can you even call that.  Delighted. You blink and go “ _mmm?_ ”  “That what you just said? Pretty sure it was.  Don’t hold out on me now brother you know if you got miracles goin’ on up all in here you gotta spill it.”  

You try to remind him patiently (snap at him for the hundredth time) that miracles aren’t your thing, they are entirely the purview of brain-damaged cultist assholes who have rotted their thinkpans with fizzy trash-drinks, and even if you did accidentally have a fleeting thought and…accidentally apparently say that fleeting thought out loud…that doesn’t mean you believe in them any more than you ever did, or that they are any less fake.  But on the words “in here” he nuzzled his face up against your horns again, and the overwhelming  _sense_  of him is ricocheting around your bones.  

“ _Nmmghn,_ ” you say instead, and even if putting you back under doesn’t fix the weakness that keeps making your hands and legs betray you, it makes it feel more right.  It’s right, being like this while he holds you.  It’s right, being weak for him to protect.  It’s right, trusting somebody.  God, how did you ever live without trusting somebody else like this? “D’n stop.”

He laughs and spews some inane bullshit about miracles and messiah-given destinies and some stuff that makes your blood-pusher feel all mushy.  He’s not the kind of troll to throw around five-syllable words much unless they’re couched in inane bullshit, but you think you know the sound of him talking his way around  _serendipity_.  You put your head on one side lazily and just watch his face instead of listening.  You know the scars on his lips where he chews on them with those ridiculous highblood mouth-skewers he calls fangs. The way his face moves, expressive even through the muffling layer of his paint.  The brightness of his eyes.  

You hear a question—get out a mumbled  _mmmm_  again and then take a deep purposeful breath to keep in the whine that wants to rise up in your throat as Gamzee nods and untangles himself from you.  He carries you into the entertainment block—drags the stuff for your pile out of the corners and pieces them together with a sort of relentless care and focus you rarely get to see in him.  He lays you down there and pulls out his husktop.

You hear the call to the empress’s private line go through, faint and far off as he comes back to you and helps you move your heavy fronds around until you’re comfortable. You have just the self-consciousness to be embarrassed and then he’s edging down next to you, helping you forget.  He pats your cheek gently and pushes you down as you try to check the camera set-up, try to sit up and greet the empress, even if he could only get a recording—is she watching live?  Does she have suggestions?  Why the fuck is the soft little rhythm of his hand patting your face so hypnotic?  

“ _Brother’s so weak still,_ ” Gamzee murmurs, and strokes your hair out of your face, flicks a nail against the tip of your horn—it feels like a small, clear bell getting rung inside your thinkpan.  “Brother went and handed himself away just to protect this useless fucker here and best friend, you got hurt all to hell and back.”

“ _I picked this,_ ” you gasp out, and he huffs out a breath into your skin—a sigh or a laugh or just a breath you can’t tell.  “They were taking your  _paint_  off, Gamzee.”

His smile falls, tightens.  “ _Yeah,_ ” he says, and there’s a snarl to his voice.  “ _Never to ever, best friend, never to ever with the fuckery they’re tryin’ to do on me and you—”_

“ I know.”  You can barely move, especially after he’s been touching you like that, messing all preoccupied with your horns and hair, but you get a hand up and pat messily at his face.  “I know, you ridiculous scrawny bastard.  I know.  And besides, this shit will wear off.”

“You still scared?”  He’s watching you carefully, one hand still resting in your hair with casual closeness that makes your thorax warm. “Still got fears all eating and biting up in you?  Doubting-like on how if we're safe or not?”

You think about it, you really do, you give it serous thought.  Still scared…?

“…not scared,” you say finally, and he turns down and looks at you, one hand rubbing big and cold over your belly. “Not…scared.  Not really.  Just…I’m just all fucked up, please, just take me away from this shit. Please, fuck.”

He smiles down at you, warm and soft, and holds your cheeks in both hands, squishing a little so you scowl at him through pursed-up lips.  He laughs and then lets you go, stroking your face and arms and legs and hair like he loves your whole stupid body the same.  

“Don’t see as how a brother could even self-control hisself up a willpower to say ‘no’ to that,” he says, and strokes a knuckle over the spot on your side that makes you twitch, the fucker. You can’t get the actual twitch out—all you seem to be able to get is a soft squeak that sounds more like a whimper than a growl, and he bites his lip around a grin and squishes the tip of your nose with one pointy fingertip.

“Look at this shit,” he says, and he sounds so goddamn  _tender_  you’d swear you could cry.  “Can’t but hardly move for yourself, can you?  And it’s me you’d get to, to get my sweet best friend cared after.  It’s me you’d take your fine self to, when you  _can’t_  hardly even take yourself any-motherfucking-where.”  For a second his claws dig a little too close to your throat—you tense and then force yourself still, close your eyes and let your head fall back,  His breath stutters.  “… _I could hurt the_ fuck _out of you,_ ” he says quietly.  “…and you’d not be able to move to shake me off.  But fuck if you ain’t the softest and most pity-worthy and I’ll make you feel so good, Karkat, I’ll make you feel  _so fuckin’ good_.”

\--

You don’t even think about the Condesce being there again until you’re coming back up out of the haze and she and Gamzee are sitting up chatting, your head in his lap, his hands waving and gesturing and making dancing shadows between you and the dim overhead light.  When you’re done shooshing him you’re always too embarrassed to really talk to her too much—Gamzee’s not, and they’re laughing about something as you stare up at him and purr softly, content.  She likes him.  He likes you. You like her.  You think she even (please god) likes  _you_.  It’s more than you could have ever hoped for.  

“—a fish, not my motherfucking matesprit!”  Gamzee is saying, and you blink slow and feel his fingers move a little on automatic, scratching at the nape of your neck.  Fuck that feels nice.  “—and I don’t even sing!”

They both burst out laughing. You smile a stupid, soppy smile, roll over a little, and close your eyes—

“ _What’s the shit going down in here?_ ”

The voice is unfamiliar, a sudden, soft murmur, and you jolt out of your comfortable haze immediately, shaking off the fog and staring around.   _Big,_  something in your pan whispers, something dark and animal.   _Danger, dangerous something big—_

“Hey, it’s mah bay!”  The Condesce spreads her glittering arms in welcome, looking somewhere past the camera.  Her eyes are so dark, and you feel a sudden flash of pride mixed with dread. Have you put her in a dangerous position?  Is the person coming into her block trustworthy?  Of course you believe in your empress’s fighting prowess, but—

“Heard you laughin’ right down the hall,” says the voice, and the empress snorts.  “Shit’s my righteous biz.  What you got there?”

“You watched the videos I sent you the other night?”

Another rumbling sigh from off-camera, impatient.  “No.  Not no more than I watched the other ones after you sent me the first.”

“Aw, Kurlz.  Shit’s rude.”

“I don’t need to see it to know,” says the voice—holy fuck, it’s not that deep or that loud but it’s  _big_.  Your spine is prickling.  “And I don’t gotta get my motherfucking peep on of that shit.  Feels all wrong.”

“Hey,” calls Gamzee, a little belated, and the empress glances back at the camera, grinning.  “Ain’t a thing if you  _do_  want to get a peep on, if you ain’t the type as would do unkind shit about it.  We’re chill with it.”

Silence from the off-camera voice. Then, “—wriggler,” says the voice, and there’s a tone to it you don’t really understand or recognize.  Kind of like the person talking is smiling but there’s another note to it.  You are too fucking tired to parse this out.  “Wriggler, I do not have the intention to watch you get yourself off in any goddamn quadrant.  Shit comes out around to fuckin’ weird.”

“Why’s that?”

Another sigh.  And then the empress reaches up and beckons wordlessly, and a great, rangy mass of purple and black and wild hair comes sidling into the frame and flops down next to her, filling the screen with painted face and wide, dark eyes.

You don’t know the guy, although if he can just sit down next to the empress like that he must be important, but Gamzee is on his feet so fast he almost falls back over again.

“Fuck!”

The skinny giant of a troll grins—he’s scarred all to hell, missing one of his front fangs, and underneath the hair you think you see fins like Gamzee’s, but scarred and ripped and torn. God, purples don’t visibly age much but there’s something about him that looks  _ancient._   The wary prickling in your spine hasn’t stopped being a thing.  “Yeah,” he says.  “Thought that’s what you might say.  Heard you were one of the faithful.  Heard you been real good with your paint when they wanted it off.”  He grins, and Gamzee blurts a noise that might be some kind of affirmative.  His back is straighter than you even thought it could physically go.  He looks somewhere between so terrified he’s going to fall over and so excited he’s going to pee himself.  It would be adorable if it wasn’t freaking you out so much.

“Gamzee, what the fuck?”  You tug at his pant leg, trying to make him sit down—he doesn’t so much as budge.  

“Vantas,” says the empress, and she sounds  _highly_  amused now, should you be standing too?  “Makara. Buoys, the Grand Highblood. Kurloz…” she gestures at you two. “Mah buoys.”

Holy shit.  You stare—the Grand Highblood, destroyer of planets and culler of millions, looks back at the two of you, eyebrows raised, leaning lazily on the empress’s side to see whatever screen she has your feed pulled up on.

“I even did used to do up my paint like that,” he says.  “Downright motherfucking miraculous-uncanny.”

“Wait.”  You blink, voice cracking a little, and then blink again as something starts to slot into place.  “— _wait,_  this is the guy whose speeches you listen to every couple days.”

Gamzee’s ears are purple.  “— _head of the church,_ ” he says, really quiet out of the corner of his mouth like he’s trying not to be heard.  “Karkat—”

Yeah, he’s panicking.  You pat the back of one skinny calf—he jumps and then looks down at you for real and seems to remember where he is and who he’s with.  To your satisfaction, some of the tension goes out of him.  

“Sit down,” you say, and turn back to the camera.  “…if you don’t want to watch…” you search for a word to sum it up, but nothing comes to mind—you just kind of shrug at the entirety of it and move on.  “…us…what the fuck can we do for you?”  You hesitate for a second, thinking about it, then hazard, “…sir?”

“Hey, little motherfucker, I’m just here.”  He kicks back, lounging on the empress’s couch, and you can see some of the same lanky, thoughtless grace Gamzee has in the way he maneuvers all those huge long limbs. Must be a purpleblood thing.  “As I do wait on the empress’s motherfucking beck and call, here I sit.”  His eyes flicker away from you again and go back to scanning Gamzee with that weird, almost proprietary fondness on his grotesquely-painted face.  “…here to see a brother I get my relate on to, all miracle-blooded up in this bitch.”

“But Karkat’s the one as has got the miracle blood,” Gamzee says, confused, and his ears flutter when the Grand Highblood snorts.  “—milord.”

“That’s as what you’d figure, but the two of us...we got miracles all different-like.”  He shifts his bony legs out of the way, and for the first time the light from the screen glances off his chest and you get a clear shot of him.  He’s not wearing the outfit they always show him with in the imperial orientation feeds—something simple and black you think (god what is your life) must be what he goes to ‘coon in.  And there on the thorax, small but perfect-clear and unmistakable…

“Hey,” says Gamzee mildly. “Yeah, looks fuckin’ sweet. “ Then his brow furrows up.  You can’t breathe.  Your hand is a vice on his arm, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. “—but if you ain’t a fan, the fuck have you got all dressed up on your bad self with my sign? Sir.”

“Gamzee,” you say, really quietly.

“Ask your palemate,” says the Grand HIghblood, and there’s a tone you know too well in his voice, the sound of somebody keeping a straight face through a joke, the sound you hear so often in your moirail’s voice and you can…you can  _see_  it, the angle of his jaw, the fins, the movements, the way his eyebrows quirk even oh shit—  “Looks like he’s got that miracle moment of knowledge bloomin’ up in his little freak pan.”

Gamzee looks back at you. “Best friend?”  He seems to register whatever your face is doing for the first time—his ears pin back a little in confusion.  “Uh...hey, you okay?”

“I thought—just a legend,” you say, stunned truthful like a chump.  “Just some shit the highbloods—” then you remember who you’re talking to and choke that off, but they both know what you were going to say. The Empress snorts. The Grand Highblood smirks, an expression that’s refreshingly different from Gamzee’s normal dopey grin until you notice that he has the same dimples.  Fuck.  

“Say the word, wriggler.”

“I…” you hesitate, then cross your arms and take a deep calming breath.  The word comes out almost even.  “…ancestor. You’re his ancestor.”

“Closest as I got to another me from long ago and far back,” agrees the Grand Highblood, and pulls a bottle of something out of his sylladex, toasting you with it with another one of those wicked smirks.  “For all he’s the most un-fucking-healthy of shades, little mutant does have a pan to him.  _He does think and notice._   Which is why no, I ain’t gonna watch you while you do what the fuck ever with your quadrants, Makara.  Makes me feel sullied and unusual.”

“—!” says Gamzee.  You didn’t know he could even make that noise, but hey, it’s a day for discoveries you guess.  

“I got reports to give at you before I’m done for the day, Meenah,” says the Grand Highblood, and pushes himself up.  God, is Gamzee going to get that tall?  Holy shit. “Things need doing.  You done here?”

The empress (Meenah?  Holy shit, is that her name, did you just learn her name?) sighs and rolls her eyes.  “ _Yeah,_ ” she groans. “Shooore.  Whatebber.  I’ll call you back another time, pupas.”

“Good morning,” says Gamzee dutifully.  Off-screen his ancestor laughs.  “Oh! And, uh—good morning at you too. Uh—milord.”

“Don’t go standing on motherfucking formalities at me, little brother,” says the Grand Highblood lazily, and waves a hand.  “—both Makaras here.”

“Motherfucker,” says Gamzee, a little bit breathlessly.  

“Not quite so unformal as that though,” says the Grand Highblood with half a laugh in his voice, and holy fucking shit is he  _joking_  with your moirail?  Is he seriously actually teasing him?  What the fuck?  Is this more weird clown bullshit?  

He starts off forward, leaves the screen behind—you hear his voice, more distant, as he starts to leave the block. “…evening, brother Makara.”

“Evening!”  Gamzee is practically trembling, there’s a huge, disbelieving grin spreading over his face.  “B-brother Makara!”

All you hear is a distant, too-familiar laugh, and then, far away, the door to the block closing.  For a couple of seconds there’s silence.  Then the Condesce looks up at the camera again and grins.  

“He likes you real good, li’l Clamzee,” she says.  Gamzee buries his purple face in his hands.  “Oh yeah!  Before I get my bad shellf gone.  I gotta list here, all the different plaices we got we could move you to now.  Take a look-sea, let me know what you wanna do.” She stretches and yawns.  “…now.  I’m gonna go sea if I can’t hook mah big clownfish bay into swingin’ diamonds for me again.  I ain’t wrecked him reel good for sweeps, but you little cuddlefishes got me all worked up.” She waves a heavily-decorated hand before either of you can react, cutting off the strangled noise you were about to make.  “…anywave. Morning, Nubs, Clamz.”

And then she’s gone.

“Oh my  _god,_ ” is the first thing you say, kind of a little bit breathless. “Oh my god she’s piling the Grand Highblood.  Oh my god it’s like something out of a fucking movie.  Oh my  _god._ ”

“— _brother,_ ” Gamzee is saying at the same time, not that you’re listening to him any more than he’s listening to you, “—brother Makara he called me, he called me little brother, oh fuck oh god—”

\--

It takes both of you more than an hour to calm down from your personal areas of excited jabbering—or actually, Gamzee is sitting in one place and bouncing up and down in his seat, spitting out massive quantities of excited clown-related words about brotherhood, messiahs, sermons, and lots and lots of “motherfucker”.  You’re the one pacing in tiny circles chewing on your knuckles and grinning so wide your cheeks hurt, thinkpan spinning with the thought of new hives, places you’ll be safe, the Condesce grinning at you with dark eyes.  (Awful mental images of what they’d look like on a pile, that tall, ancient, scarred mountain of a troll laid out, the waterfall of jet black hair and their long, battered horns touching as they)

(as they)

Anyway, it takes you an hour. By the time you’re all calmed down, it’s getting light out and the stress and exhaustion of the day are starting to take their toll.  Gamzee is still not quite done freaking out, but when you nudge him and demand imperiously to be carried to the respite block to get ready for the ‘coon, that gets his attention.  You knew it would, he loves carrying you places.  

It’s surreal going back to your respite block.  Fragments of memories keep coming back to mind as Gamzee carries you in and sets you down on the comfort structure in the corner of the block to vanish off into the little ablutions block off your respite block.  Last time you were in here, you were listening to Gamzee snarl and struggle and feeling your blood-pusher thunder in your thinkpan. Last time you were here you were terrified and under attack in your own home.

You push yourself up shakily, steady yourself on your feet and then wander over to your self-ornamentation station and slump down in your seat, staring at your starkly-lit face in the reflection pane.

…your hair is starting to look like a squeakbeast nest.  You frown at yourself in the reflection pane.  Hm.  They always had you keep it short when you were acting, long wild hair wasn’t your role. (Gamzee filled that to a T, goddamn, you forgot that was something else they would have groomed him for.)  You’ve kind of gotten used to having it short.  

“Oh,” says Gamzee in the ablutions block.  You hear the sound of his message alert.  A button beeps.   “Huh.”

“Huh what?”  Maybe you should get it cut. You turn your head a little, checking the look in the mirror—hmm, but you show the roots of your horns. Better for trolling the empress, better for porn.  Worse for day-to-day life.  You’d look kind of slutty.  Unless you’re overthinking that, maybe the general public don’t look at horns and analyze how exposed they look on a regular basis.  You already knew your thinkpan was fucking  _drowned_  in porn. “Who’s pestering you at this time of the night?”

“It’s him who went and did the ordering-around,” says Gamzee.  He sounds distracted.  Another message chimes.  

“Zahhak?”

“Uh…” another message. “…yeah.”

You smooth your hair down, frown as it springs back up, lick your palms and slick it back again.  It still doesn’t stay really, but it’s closer. Nnnnno, you look like a tool with your hair slicked down.  Note made. “Does he just type really fast, or what?”

Gamzee emerges, tousled and half-dressed, with fang-scoring foam smeared on his cheek.  He’s staring at his palmhusk.  His hair is up.  Good god, look at him.  Makes you want to squeeze him.  “Nah I think he just had a whole thing.”  He scrolls. “Motherfucker’s got his righteous word on at me.  Uhhhh, eleven?  Yeah, eleven little motherfuckin' talk-bits. Goes on for eleven, all full and shit.”

“Seriously?”  You scrub a hand through your hair, tousling it back up again. “Okay.  What does he say?”

“I…confess I have not been able to stop…thinking about our…previous innnn…interactions.”  Gamzee squints at the screen—the formal language sounds completely ridiculous coming from him, especially with his face half-cleaned, a fang-scouring implement between his teeth and his hair tied up in the back to keep it out of his face.  You try not to laugh—wait patiently.  “…your…devotion to what you believe is your…blah blah blah, uh...I find it utterly loathsome, how you defile yourself so repeatedly and enthusiastically.  How motherfucking dare you.”

Whoa.  Doesn’t sound like Zahhak’s style—you sit up a little in the ‘coon and frown at him.  “…’motherfucking’, really?”

“Huh?”  Gamzee blinks.  “Oh. Uh, no, shit, he didn’t say that, I added that in my own self.” He makes a sort of ambivalent grimace around the fang-scouring implement.  “…mm.”

“Thought maybe.”  You raise your eyebrows at him.  “So?”

“Don’t like to disappoint a brother like that,” says Gamzee.  “Not one as who helped us out, got those fuckin’…ropes off me.”

“Okay…?”  You make a sort of “ _go on_ ” wave—you hope that’s how he reads it at least, he looks confused.  “So?”

“So…” he’s looking at you like there’s a right answer you’re supposed to be cluing him in to. Goddammit. “…can’t very well quit our videos, not since it’s the money and the empress likes so well watching a motherfucker…”

_What?_

“What?  Why the fuck would we stop making videos?!”

“Because—it pisses him off…?” Gamzee looks nervous, more hesitant with every word.  “…and shit’s…not good?”

Oh god.  Ohhhh god, okay, no fucking way—but then again, maybe it’s not too much of a stretch, right?  You’ve gotten yourself into a lot of dumb corners by assuming Gamzee knew things that seemed absolutely fucking obvious to you.  

“Gamzee,” you say, with as much control as you can muster, “…this guy wants to jump on your bulge in a bad fucking way.”

The fang-scouring implement clatters on the ground.  

“Uh,” says Gamzee.

“He ended a message with ‘ _how dare you_ ’?”

“Bro come on now.”

“He literally used the word ‘loathe’.”

“Yeah, but—”

“There really isn’t any question going on here, Gamzee, seriously.”

“But—”  Gamzee is staring at you, and for the first time you look past the (kind of  hilarious, to be fair) expression of shock on his face and see the frantic confusion. “—b-but—I mean come on, why’d a motherfucker want…I mean.”  He looks down on himself, and his hand flickers across his body—his bony shoulder, the ripple of his thoracic cage through his skin, the jut of his hipbones. His ears are low.  His eyes are on the ground.  “… _who’d want…_?”

Oh.

“…Gamzee,” you say, as gently as you can, and it’s stopped being funny now, it stopped being funny as soon as you saw that empty, confused sadness in his eyes, the disbelief that wasn’t just oblivious shock, but incomprehension of the idea of somebody wanting him.  Fuck, fuck fuck every time you think you’ve plumbed the depths of how badly his life has fucked him over, you find a new weakness.  “Gamzee, come on.”

“Nothing there,” he says, and scrubs a hand roughly at a scar on his side like it’s an ugly mark he can wipe away. He won’t look up at you.  “Nothing here worth…I mean…a fucker wouldn’t want…”

You pull yourself up off the seat, staggering a little, concentrating on every step.  His eyes flick up as far as your chin and then slide back down, not brave enough to find your eyes.  

You hesitate, but…yeah.  Now is the time.  There really couldn’t be a better one.

“Come here.”  

He fidgets, reluctant—you reach out and take his hand and he makes a pathetic little noise, like a sniff he’s trying to hide.  You know he’s tearing up.  What a goddamn wreck.

“Come here,” you repeat, and lead him over, settle him down in front of the husktop in the corner of the room. “…I need you to go somewhere for me. Type in  _loveyourselfdipshit_.”

“Karkat,” he starts, but you reach past him and type it in yourself and he just sighs and sits back.  You imagine the fuckers they arrested, telling him he wasn’t worth you—his managers, telling him he’d failed match after match to people who were never genuine to begin with, things before even that that you’ve barely managed to get him to hint at yet.  You think about him being alone.  He can accept you want to fix him, that you want to take the broken bits of him, but maybe you got complacent in that.  Maybe you forgot there might be other things he wants but believe he’ll never have.  You’ve fallen down on the fucking job again Vantas, great job.  

The site was a masterstroke, though. You found a few key forums to post on about it—coded it yourself and even managed not to blow anything up. It’s a simple design—a question, and answers from anonymous sources underneath it.  Your post is there at the top,  _what do you like about my moirail?  What makes Capricorn special?  I know why I want him, why do you?_ And below it there are…

…well, there are  _hundreds_  of replies.  Thousands, almost, people from all over the empire, more than you ever thought you would get, and there are one or two fuckers who are spamming or sending hate but you’ve cut those out and you can feel Gamzee’s shoulders shudder as he scrolls down tentatively, hands shaking.   _Gotta put your partner before yourself, working a shit job like he did,_  somebody says,  _especially if he really gets as fucked-up as he looks, that shit’s brave as hell—line of his back, I mean I’ve got my CPQs filled and yeah it’s CC porn not CP but goddamn y’know?—never even trained in acting and he’s better than me the awful fucker, like to see who’s the better actor under “stress” iykwim ;*) ;*)—stupidly in love with you Cancer, you can tell through the whole video, you better take care of him—all tall and wiry, that’s my type what a hottie—really pretty, I mean especially if he take care of—have you see those horns? helLO!—_

 _What a sweetheart!_  A new post chirps at the top of the page as you look at it, and Gamzee slowly pulls his feet up onto the chair, his knees up to his chest, and buries his face out of sight.   _I just want to kiss him all over, he’s the cutest!  The absolute cutest.  There’s a reason we all loved him so much!  We hope he’s okay!_

“ _Fuck,_ ” says Gamzee, heartfelt and tiny and shaky.  “ _Fuck._ ” He doesn’t sit up when you put a hand on his shaking back, but he sniffs and leans into the contact, lets you rub a palm in big, slow circles over the flat of his back.  

“Just because there are some thinkpan-challenged  _freaks_  who don’t like you because they get off on thinking about me being  _tender_  at them,” you say, “—that doesn’t mean there aren’t people who think you’re the best goddamn thing.  Okay?  Look at all this.  I collected the shit out of some evidence and  _wow,_ the general consensus is you’re pretty hot!  I mean, you could be hotter if you took better care of yourself, a horn-polishing regimen wouldn’t be a bad thing— _uhf._ ”

Gamzee can squeeze  _really_ hard when he wants to, wow.  You bend around him, bury your face and hands in his thick hair and squeeze him back.  And then grunt and jump, because Gamzee shifts his head and slams you in the side of the neck with his ridiculous, unfairly elegant horns.  

“ _G—_ ugh, Gamzee.”

He makes a sort of vaguely questioning noise he obviously doesn’t mean and burrows closer.  There is some serious blocking of blood flow going on now. You thwap him on the shoulder.  

“ _Gamzee_.   _You’re—_ ffh—you’re getting me with your horns.”  

He disengages, but reluctantly, scrubbing at his eyes.  You pat his nug awkwardly and he laughs.  

“Seriously,” you say, and put a hand on his back, pushing gently until he stops hunching.  “Sit up. Come on, sit up.  Deep breath.  What, it never even  _occurred_  to you there might be—god, a  _couple_ somebodies who thought you were hot shit?”

Gamzee sighs.  ‘…nah.”  He tries to pass it off as almost a joke, you see him fake a smile.  Fucking ridiculous.  He looks better, sure, but he still isn’t quite looking at you.  “Didn’t ever think on it too much.”

“You literally worked  _porn_  for god knows how many sweeps.”  You mean it as a joke, but—yeah, shit, that’s not how he took it.  You can see him pulling back.  Why are you so goddamn bad at being  _nice._  Did past you never think to drill some manners and niceties and shit into his thick thinkpan?  What a sponge-leak.  You soften your voice a little.  “…Gamzee.  Come on. You have to know a  _little_  about this shit, right?  I mean—didn’t you ever watch any  _movies,_ or…talk to friends about it, or hell, even your lusus—”

He flinches away from the word like you slapped him.  You slam your mouth shut on whatever drivel you were about to say, but it’s too late, that damage is done.  Gamzee’s staring at the ground, ears pinned back and eyes too bright, and you fucked up again.

“I didn’t—I never—I mean, fuck, nobody…” he cuts off, mouthing silently for a second.  His hands knot and twist at his sides.  Goddammit that’s what you get for barging into his past head-on, why the fuck did you say that?  You from thirty seconds ago should have realized what a  _stupid_  question that was!  But he didn’t, and now you’ve blundered horns-first into another one of your moirail’s stupid land-mine traumas, another buried hurt you didn’t even know what there. “… _dad never_ …”

“Shoosh,” you say, and you pity him so hard you hurt.  “…fuck, I shouldn’t have said that—It’s okay.  It’s…no, it’s not okay.  I made it not okay, fuck. It’s going to be okay though.”  He half-smiles, a terrible little twisted thing, and you feel like the worst piece of shit imaginable.  You lean forward and kiss his forehead, rough and jerky with self-hatred, and he twitches a little.  You pull away again immediately.  “—shit, sorry.”  

Gamzee glances up at you, and you can tell he’s missing his paint again, he wishes he could cover up.  His hands knot in front of him, he keeps threading his skinny fingers together and then loosening his grip and winding them together a different way.  Loose, tight, loose, tight.  

When you put out a hand and rest it over both of his, he goes still.

“… _dad didn’t get home too motherfucking much,_ ” he says, very quiet. “ _Didn’t much care for schoolfeeding._ ”

“Sorry.”

He shrugs and sniffs. How fucking  _dare_  people hurt him?  You’re going to headbutt the world to death for everything that’s been done to this violent, awful mess of a troll.

“…here,” you say, and take his hands, pull them apart as gently as you can.  When you fit yours in between his, he finally looks up at you and smiles. And—fuck him, he knows your weaknesses—raises your joined hands up to press his ridiculous fangy mouth to your knuckles, so gentle you don’t even get scratched.  For a second he just holds your hands there, closes his eyes and breathes and you are completely literally 100% incapable of making words.  Then he sighs and drops your hands again and suddenly you have control of your aeration sacs again.

“I’m making us coffee,” you say, and he smiles again and nods.  “…and then let’s talk about quadrants.”


End file.
